# **RC2025: Design and Make Session**

Good morning, everyone. I’m Guillem Camprodon, director of Fab Lab Barcelona at IAAC, and I’ll be your host for this session—**Design & Make**.

Let’s talk about design and architecture. Not the polished, perfectly curated kind, but the architecture of what’s already here—the leftovers, the forgotten, the materials cast aside by a world obsessed with the new. This isn’t about the next big thing; it’s about making the most of what’s already around us.

Today, we’re diving into **decarbonization** and **resource efficiency**—not as lofty ideals, but as design imperatives. Because the future of architecture isn’t something we build from scratch. It’s something we craft from what we already have, reshaping, repurposing, and rethinking.

The Responsive Cities Symposium is about flipping the script on conventional extractive models. It’s about **rethinking scarcity, embracing abundance, and challenging the way we view resources**. What if materials weren’t a finite commodity, but part of an evolving ecosystem? What if **reclaimed materials, waste upcycling, and design for disassembly** weren’t niche approaches, but the foundation of sustainable construction?

### What We’ll Explore Today:

1. **Design for Disassembly** – Buildings and objects that aren’t permanent, but adaptable; structures designed for future deconstruction and material reuse.
2. **Form Follows Availability** – Aesthetics driven not by a blank canvas, but by what’s locally available and ready to be repurposed.
3. **Digital Manufacturing for Reuse** – The role of digital tools in tracking, cataloging, and repurposing salvaged materials for circular construction.
4. **Circular Feedback** – A feedback loop where materials, use, and design constantly inform each other, extending the life of products and reducing waste.

### The Presentations:

1. **"PAVILION R44 \- Designing and Building with Reused Components and Materials"**: Hannah Schürmann & Jonathan Hernandez Lopez from the University of Stuttgart will present their pavilion built from reclaimed materials. It’s a case study in **component cataloguing, strategic material selection, and reversible assembly**, proving that old materials don’t have to mean old ideas.

2. **"Kitbashing Apparatus in Architecture: Toward Sustainable Assemblage Practices"**: Irem Sezer from AIA Virginia explores *kitbashing*—an approach that takes prefabricated, found, and salvaged components and assembles them in unexpected ways. This presentation rethinks the role of the architect, shifting from singular authorship to **curator of materials and forms**.

3. **"DESIGNS FOLLOWS AVAILABILITY IN URBAN INFORMALITY: The Case of Kampung Lebak Siliwangi, Bandung"**: Qonita Afnani Firdaus & Dwinita Larasati from Institut Teknologi Bandung examine how communities repurpose materials in urban informal settlements. Their study highlights **bottom-up resilience, adaptation, and creativity**, offering valuable lessons for sustainable urban development.

4. **"(co)Design and (co)Built"**: Andrea Conserva, Researcher and EU Project Manager at IAAC, will illustrate a journey that began at the MAA Digital Matter and Intelligent Constructions studio—research that later evolved into tangible construction solutions. Through multiple EU and locally funded projects, Andrea’s work demonstrates how **collaborative practices can be applied to develop tangible decarbonizing solutions for urban environments.**

Each of these presentations will show how architecture and construction can shift from an unsustainable “take-make-waste” cycle to one that prioritizes longevity, **resource recovery, and material stewardship**.

### What To Consider:

As we move through today’s discussions, think about this: How can we shift our mindset to see waste not as an endpoint, but as a beginning, from scarcity to **abundance**? How does this affect traditional principles of **constraint based creativity on design**? How can design take cues from the principles of **modularity and disassembly** to extend the life of materials and structures? If form follows availability is the role of the designer, the architect the one of the **urban miner**?

### Let’s Get Started

Now, let’s welcome our first speakers and dive into these transformative ideas.

## Questions:

1. **Shared Ground:** Considering the symposium’s emphasis on shifting from scarcity to abundance, how do your respective projects **redefine “resource”** within the built environment? How does this new definition challenge traditional **constraint-based design methods**?

2. **For "PAVILION R44" (Schürmann & Hernandez Lopez):** Your pavilion highlights **component cataloguing and digital tools** as enablers for material reuse. What were the biggest challenges in **assessing the condition and reusability** of dismantled facade components? How could **BIM** (Building Information Modelling) or similar platforms streamline this process?

3. **For "Kitbashing Apparatus in Architecture" (Sezer):** Kitbashing disrupts traditional notions of architectural authorship and brings practices from other design fields. In what ways can it promote a **collaborative, curatorial approach** to design, shifting the role of the architect? *Kitbashing or model bashing is the practice of making a new scale model by taking pieces out of kits.*

4. **For "DESIGNS FOLLOWS AVAILABILITY IN URBAN INFORMALITY" (Firdaus & Larasati):** Your study highlights how Kampung Lebak Siliwangi residents adapt their built environment with limited materials. How can **formal urban design strategies** integrate and support these informal processes without disrupting their character and resilience? Informalism vs regulations, policy needs to change?

5. **For "From Research to Reality: Decarbonizing and Renaturing Cities" (Conserva):** Your work spans from advanced research to practical applications in urban environments. How do you bridge the gap between **experimental materials research** and **scalable, real-world implementation**, particularly when working within the constraints of EU and local funding structures?

6. **Provocative Wrap-Up:** Imagine a future where **urban “waste streams” are fully integrated into architectural design**, becoming the primary source of materials. Are we creating an **architecture of waste**, where discarded materials drive design aesthetics and construction principles?

And as Neil Gershenfeld puts it, **waste is simply material that lacks the right information—it’s a bug in the system.** So, let’s end with a thought exercise:

**In one word, what is waste to you?**

##

## Broaden topics

### Circularity & Material Flows

**Keywords:** *Material Passport, Internet of Trash, Tracing, Circular Economy*
The future of sustainable design depends on **tracking and repurposing materials** across their lifecycle, transforming waste into resources through **circular systems, material passports, and digital tracing**.

### Design Methodologies & Practices

**Keywords:** *Product Design, Informalism, Prototypes, Adaptive Practices*
Innovative design emerges from **adaptive, iterative, and bottom-up approaches**, leveraging **prototyping, informalism, and product design strategies** to respond to material constraints and real-world needs.

### Digitalization, Openness, and Systemic Risks

**Keywords:** *Risk of Digitalization, Resilience, Intellectual Property, Closed Source, Protocols Not Platforms, Appropriation*
As digitalization reshapes design and construction, **the balance between openness and control** defines future resilience, where **protocols, ownership models, and systemic risks** dictate accessibility, durability, and adaptability.