An international symposium challenging the material practices of architecture.

Keynote speakers: Carlo Ratti, Mette Ramsgaard Thomsen, Dirk Hegel, Martha Thorne, Philip Yuan, Sabine Oberhuber, Phil Ayres, Communal Taller, Anna Denell, Alexandre Monnin.

Design shapes our world, from the places we live in to objects we use every day. As we grow more aware of the limits of our planet’s resources, shifting from an exploitative to a restorative, regenerative and circular design ideology becomes fundamental.

Resourceful Architecture is a first pre-event in the UIA2023CPH series leading up to the congress event summer 2023. This symposium examines approaches to resourcefulness in architecture; how sustainability challenges the foundations of our material practices and how they can change with it. We ask how rethinking waste through circular design paradigms can challenge our ideas of ‘end of life’ and engineer new materials with bespoke lifespans that actively engage and correspond to building performance. We question how computational design processes can aid the management of recycled resource stocking, support processes of de-fabrication and optimise the strategic deployment of resource. We challenge our assumptions of how materials are sourced probing how bio-based and synthetically grown materials can lead to new agri- and silvicultures of resource procurement.

And all of this in context. To understand the change to resource in the built environment we must consider the global processes of extraction and deployment and their economic, social and ecological consequences. We must engage the vast potential for global knowledge embodied in crafts tradition and local vernacular while innovating participatory models and supporting education, research and local technology development.

Programme
13:30 : Welcome and setup

14:00 : Keynote: Towards a theory of resource in the anthropocene
Mette Ramsgaard Thomsen - Professor and Head of Royal Danish Academy - CITA

14:20 : Keynote: Circular Consequences
Dirk E Hebel - Professor of Sustainable Construction and the Dean of the Department of Architecture at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology

15:00 : Session 1: Challenging Technology through what Design 

15:10 : Resourceful architecture
Carlo Ratti - Architect, engineer, inventor, educator and activist. Professor and head of the MIT Senseable City Lab

15:35 : Low tech and High tech perspectives
Philip Yuan - Professor, Co-chair of Built Environment Technology Center, CAUP, Tongji University, Principle and Co-founder of Archi-Union Architects and Fab-Union Technology.

16:10 : Session 2: Challenging Material

16:20 : Ressource as intergenerational
Sabine Oberhuber - Pioneer of circular economy and Co-Founder of Turntoo

16:45 : Living Materials for hybrid assemblies
Phil Ayres - Associate Professor at the Royal Danish Academy - CITA with focus on bio hybrid assemblies

17:10 : Panel discussion 1
Moderator Martha Thorne

18:00 : Session 3: Challenging Context

18:10 : Community visions
Communal Taller - a Non-Governmental Organization dedicated to the Social Production of Architecture.

18:35 : Rebuildign with Recycling
Anna Denell - Sustainability Director at Vasakronan

19:00 : Extro: Rethinking design agency: De-design
Alexandre Monnin - Professor at the ESC Clermont Business School in ecological editing and design, Director of the MSc "Strategy & Design for the Anthropocene" and Scientific Director of the Origins Media Lab.

19:30 : Panel discussion 2
Moderator Martha Thorne