2025 | Living in a Materials World | Theresa Mark and Kenza Hajji
What we’re making our buildings out of may be killing us. The choice of materials that designers make impacts the health of building occupants, factory workers, and residents of communities adjacent to those factories.
Image credit to ©UNDP Climate Promise
For architects and designers, materials are never just finishes. They shape performance, influence human health, and carry impacts far beyond the spaces we design.
With The Better Materials Toolkit, EskewDumezRipple’s 2024–2025 Research Fellow Theresa Mark translated a year of research into a practical, accessible guide for making better material decisions in everyday practice.
View all resources developed here.
The Living in a Materials World fellowship created a practical, accessible guide for making better material decisions in everyday practice: The Better Materials Toolkit.
The fellowship produced multiple key resources:
1. The Better Materials Toolkit: A comprehensive guide outlining the research, frameworks, and strategies behind better material selection.
2. Material Library Standards: A Good / Better / Best system to help teams evaluate and prioritize healthier, more equitable, and lower-impact materials.
3. Healthy Materials Charrette: A facilitated process that brings project teams together to set material goals, evaluate options, and align decisions early.
4. Impact Categories Worksheet & Discussion Guide: A structured tool to help teams understand and apply the AIA Materials Pledge’s core impact categories across their projects.
Read a blog article on the research here.
