Campus Materials Analysis

The six applications of fabrics include seating, window covering, wall covering, panel systems, floor coverings, and fiber based art. Walking around the Texas Tech campus you can see many of these applications put to use in a variety of settings. In the human sciences building, as shown in the top picture, a black leather like material was used for seating in many of the areas. In the English building, many office chairs were upholstered in a decorative fabric that was very wear resistant. There are many positive things about both of these materials used in their seating settings but also many negatives to these materials used.

The black leather like material used for upholstering the seating used in the break areas of the Human Sciences building has many ups and downs. For instance, the aesthetic qualities of the material go along perfectly with the Texas Tech colors, red and black, as the material is black and red accents are used throughout the furniture pieces. However, one of the displeasing qualities of this material is that it looks cheap from one perspective. You can tell that this material is not real leather even though it is supposed to be made to look that way. The functionality of this material is great though. This material is very wearable and also very cleanable meant for an area of high volume and accidents which makes it perfect for the break area of the Human Sciences building.

The office chair's material in the English building also has its many ups and down to it as well. The material from an aesthetic quality is not the most pleasing thing to look at. The design on this fabric is very busy and has too much going on, especially when it is meant for classrooms where you want the students to be focusing on their work or the professor. The design in this fabric can easily be a distraction to anyone in these classrooms. The functional qualities however of this material is outstanding. The material is obviously very wearable and resistant to abrasion which is great because there are obviously many different people seating in these seats daily.

After walking through campus, there were many different materials used in a variety of ways. These are just two examples of the many different materials.