The Materials and Methods of Construction: Eric D. Weber, Associate Professor of Architecture
Six Questions with Eric D. Weber, Associate Professor of Architecture
“My research centers on the materials and methods of construction, specifically how they inform (and are informed by) poetic, technological and cultural factors.”
Tell us a bit about your work before joining CAPLA, and what brought you to the college.
I worked for Will Bruder and Jones Studio in Phoenix before becoming a full-time academic in 2011, when I joined the faculty at the University of Nevada Las Vegas. I established a design-build studio there, completing two houses for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Solar Decathlon Build Challenge; these houses finished in second (2013) and third places (2021). My students and I also completed an artists’ housing project in Utah and several digitally fabricated installation projects. As a longtime Arizona resident, I missed home, and of equal importance, CAPLA has a well-earned reputation for a culture of making, which is central to my pedagogy and research interests.
The Jarson Residence in Paradise Valley, Arizona, by Will Bruder Architects, on which Eric Weber served as project architect. Photo by Bill Timmerman.
What is your current research and what most excites you about this focus?
My research centers on the materials and methods of construction, specifically how they inform (and are informed by) poetic, technological and cultural factors. As an architect who has had the opportunity to work with exceptionally talented firms, I developed an interest in the extraordinary care with which their projects were constructed, often using nontraditional methods, using materials in unexpected ways, and how this care resulted in opportunities to enrich the lives of the buildings’ occupants. The careful attention to detail these architects and many others incorporate in their practices create numerous opportunities, often with extraordinary economy of means, to create memorable experiences. Having learned how to do this myself, I want to teach others what I have had the opportunity to explore.
Tell us about your design-build work and vision for the program at CAPLA.
Design-build projects, such as the Solar Decathlon and artists houses, were significantly informed by my material/tectonic research, by my interest in place-responsive design and by my interest in digital fabrication.
My vision for CAPLA Design/Build will be to build on the success of the program, while incorporating opportunities for digital fabrication and other research-based construction techniques when appropriate. Projects like the Sonoran Pentapus on the west side of CAPLA and the current Stadium Rowhouses improve the campus, inspire our students and help the university to be a good neighbor to the community. I look forward to finding other opportunities like these going forward.
The entrance to the DesertSol project, second place winner by the UNLV team, led by Eric Weber, in the 2013 U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon Build Challenge. Photo by Kevin Duffy.
What will you be teaching in the School of Architecture?
I will be working with University Distinguished Professor of Architecture Mary Hardin to complete Rowhouses 3 and 4 as part of the Stadium Rowhouse project, a group of five houses bordering the Rincon Heights neighborhood south of the main campus. In the spring I will be leading the design of the final row house.
The other course sequence I will be teaching will be the Techne courses, along with Trevor Watson. We have made a number of refinements, building on the work of Sheehan Wachter and Jesús Edmundo Robles Jr. Our primary focus this semester will be on teaching students a number of skills that will assist them in starting a design project, using both digital techniques and physical prototyping in the CAPLA Model and Materials Labs.
Beyond research and teaching, what are your passions?
In no particular order, I enjoy designing and making furniture, occasionally making sculptures, working on and riding my motorcycle and trying to learn to play harmonica.
Students assemble CNC-cut supports for the Mojave Bloom residence acoustical ceiling. The project, guided by Eric Weber, was a third place winner in the 2021 U.S. DOE Solar Decathlon Build Challenge. Photo courtesy UNLV Design+Build Studio.
Though you're just joining us at CAPLA, what advice do you have for students—in your studios or otherwise?
Work hard, of course, but enjoy your work. It makes it worthwhile, I promise! If you find that you aren’t enjoying what you’re doing, step back for a moment, take a deep breath and start asking questions. Lots of them: keep going until you actually run out of questions. At the end of this exercise, the solution will begin to reveal itself. If it doesn’t, you’ll at least be in a much better position to describe why you’re stuck, which is exactly where your professors can help.
