69: Clay, Climate, and Comfort: Materializing Custom Ceramic Clay-Bodies

As climates shift, this collaborative research project between architecture and ceramic arts explores how regional clays can yield customized, climate-responsive ceramic facade systems that provide thermal comfort. This paper focuses on ceramics in relation to water, investigating if clay-body composition influences ceramic responses to water conditions. Three different dry clays were each combined with six incremental ratios of sand as well as coffee grind waste to create 36 unique clay-bodies. From each clay-body, identical pinch-bowls were made—each fired to one of four firing temperatures. In total, 144 pinch-bowls were arranged into prototype matrices. Water tests were conducted. Collected data was graphed, resulting in analyses about absorption, retention, and drainage. Findings demonstrate predictable water responses based upon clay type as well as clay-body composition and firing temperatures. Pragmatically, local clay could be sourced, and clay-body composition and firing temperature could be tweaked for a desired material behavior.