ABSTRACT
This chapter suggests that places before and after the process of remaking the site has taken place and the advent of the building; what matters are the perceptual qualities of the material intervention in ensuring anthropological and cultural continuity. Materiality in architectural design could be seen as the projective relationship between drawing and building, between abstract conception and material manifestation; its significance lies in its alternation between eye/drawing relationship and body/building experience. Site materialises our interpretation of both place and life. Ideas of place extension and their impact on site identity are embedded in Frampton's idea of Critical Regionalism, where architecture simultaneously resists and mediates between the local/global pressures on a particular place. Criteria for material selection, such as their properties, techniques of production and employment, durability, availability, and their architectural interest, are all decisive factors in architectural materialisation.
