Material Concern

As kids, my brother and I shared a room on the third floor of our house, directly across the street from a modernist grade school, its mostly windowless facade a slab of concrete four storeys high. From the vantage point of my bed, all I could see was an expressionless grey presence, brought to life only by the buzz of a giant ventilation system. And though I looked at it every day for years, I never gave the monolithic expanse much thought.

Whether we realize it or not, the beauty and the menace of concrete stare us in the face throughout our lives, so much so that we’re more or less desensitized to its omnipresence. That solidified mixture of gravel, sand, and cement covers the ground we travel. It undergirds our skylines and waterfronts. It defines how we live. Long ago, our forebears celebrated concrete as a symbol of technological progress; now its pervasiveness means we largely ignore it.

For many, an interest in playing with the earth starts and...