Rael San Fratello: Prototypes and Provocations

Building material, made visible

YBCA presents Sanctuary as a demonstration of building methods developed by the Oakland architecture and design studio. The cylindrical structure makes its ingredients and method central to the work, rather than leaving construction as a hidden step behind the finished form.

The exhibition description also sets out a large table of 3D-printed objects made from materials YBCA characterizes as sustainable, upcycled or recovered from waste. The list includes salt, Chardonnay grape skins, coffee grounds, clay, sawdust and ash gathered after California wildfires. Together, the commission and the objects put different scales of material use in view, from an earthen structure to printed forms.

Virginia San Fratello’s work combines industrial 3D printing with knowledge of building materials. Her other projects include Emerging Objects, a 3D-printing studio, Forust, a company built around printing with wood waste, and Muddy Robots, which is developing robotic construction using raw earth. That background connects the exhibition’s material experiments to a broader practice, rather than treating the table as a catalogue of unusual ingredients.

Further reading: Rael San Fratello: Prototypes and Provocations - YBCA ↗ · Virginia San Fratello - YBCA ↗

A studio practice across building and land

Founded in 2002 by Virginia San Fratello and Ronald Rael, Rael San Fratello is an Oakland-based architecture and design studio. YBCA traces its work from early experiments merging clothing and construction through projects focused on the U.S.-Mexico border and, later, work combining 3D printing with traditional earthen materials.

The founders’ practices help explain the range. San Fratello works across contemporary printing and long-standing material knowledge. Ronald Rael is an architect, artist, activist, design technologist and traditional builder, as well as a multigenerational rancher. YBCA describes his work as spanning architecture, art, technology, land-based practice and social justice.

The survey places those subjects within architecture itself: building methods sit alongside questions about land, borders and how power takes shape in shared spaces. This gives the material experiments a social context as well as a technical one.

Further reading: Rael San Fratello: Prototypes and Provocations - YBCA ↗ · Ronald Rael - YBCA ↗ · Virginia San Fratello - YBCA ↗

A border project centered on shared play

The exhibition names the studio’s 2019 Teeter-Totter Wall among its projects. The work consisted of bright pink seesaws installed along the U.S.-Mexico border wall; YBCA frames the shared play as a way to imagine connection across a contested boundary.

The original seesaws were installed at the border. YBCA’s exhibition listing does not say they are installed in Gallery 2, so visitors should not expect the physical seesaws to be there. Placed in the survey’s wider account of the studio, the project shows how Rael San Fratello’s work addresses political boundaries as well as the materials and methods of construction.

Further reading: Rael San Fratello: Prototypes and Provocations - YBCA ↗