Earthen Comforts: Airing Earth

_Earthen Comforts: Airing Earth_ is a courtyard installation led by Liz Gálvez (Office e.g.) that stages mass and fiber as shared infrastructures for collective comfort in the Los Angeles summer. Building on the practice’s ongoing investigation into heat resilience and material experimentation by staging thermal infrastructures as architectural and civic propositions, the project adapts passive cooling strategies from desert contexts into the M&A x Craft Contemporary Courtyard. Contemporary design culture continues to privilege mechanical conditioning as the default mode of environmental control, often at great ecological cost. _Earthen Comforts_ reframes this paradigm by re-centering thermal design as an architectural and civic act, intervening in urgent debates around climate adaptation, material practice, and collective life. _Earthen Comforts_ is the final site-specific installation designed for the M&A x Craft Contemporary Courtyard, a partnership between Materials & Applications and Craft Contemporary. Each summer since 2021, M&A transforms Craft Contemporary’s courtyard into a venue grounded by a public work of experimental architecture. A series of summer events brings architects, artists, and storytellers together into dialogue, with renewed focus on urban environments and community engagement. _Earthen Comforts_ was collectively curated by the 2025 M&A Program Committee, comprising Austin Merchant, Aviva Rubin, Hilary Huckins-Weidner, Leana Scott, and Sara Suárez, with M&A Staff Kate Yeh Chiu, and Michael Lagos. --- _Earthen Comforts: Airing Earth_ is generously supported by the Pasadena Art Alliance, the University of California, Berkeley, Arts Research Center (ARC), and the University of California, Berkeley, College of Environmental Design. _Earthen Comforts_ has additionally received support from Nous Engineering. --- Office e.g. & (Im)material Matters Lab, UC Berkeley Liz Gálvez Ian Chu Theint Lei Lincoln Ruiz-Truong Thermal Consultation Salmaan Craig Wood Assemblies Consultation Paul Mayencourt (Berkeley Wood Lab) --- **Liz Gálvez** is a registered architect and Assistant Professor of Architecture at UC Berkeley, where she directs the (Im)material Matters Lab. Her practice, Office e.g., investigates building technologies—historical and emerging—through environmental responsibility and material experimentation. (Image Credits) Office e.g./(Im)material Matters Lab, _Earthen Comforts_, image of model, 2025. Courtesy of Liz Gálvez.