"Almost every industry in the world has benefited from the invention of plastics, but it is only in the recent past that they have begun to be appreciated as architectural materials in their own right. Plastics are quickly becoming one of the most ubiquitous materials in construction and have the potential to reshape the roles of architects and engineers, as well as the construction industry at large. As a building material, plastic allows for easily molded and formed shapes, leading to increasingly malleable design processes. Despite being the most deeply engineered building materials today, plastics are still in the nascent stages of understanding in terms of their potential applications and uses. In Permanent Change an interdisciplinary group of architects, historians, theorists, and engineers collectively explore the past, present, and future possibilities of this innovative building material"--"While plastics are perhaps the most deeply engineered building materials today, we are still in the nascent stages of understanding their potential applications and uses. Permanent Change sheds new light on these materials and their implications for the fields of architecture and engineering. Materials that once forecast easily molded shapes have become a permanent measure and control point in design. Permanent Change is the fourth in the series Columbia Books on Materials and Architecture"--