Crafting Circularity

Based on the limitations of resources we face, the project explores a paradigm shift: designing architecture with availabilities. This puts the architect in a new role within the design and construction process which challenges architecture education fundamentally. Therefore, new methods, tools and processes in architecture education must be found and established. Architects are essential agents in the necessary shift for a sustainable construction sector as they develop ideas, shaping buildings and our infrastructure, essentially choosing building materials and moderating building processes. While researchers and practitioners have taken on the issue and explore alternatives based on the circular use of materials, construction parts or buildings, the education of architects is still largely disconnected with the reflection of new design strategies for a more sustainable built environment. The actual design practice in architectural education needs to be connected to the state-of-the-art knowledge about sustainable design, students and teachers need to establish and train resource (availability) based design as a new paradigm in our building culture. And there needs to be a broader understanding of what sustainability and circularity mean and what they can bring to the very different within the European context. Embedding circular thinking and making actual objects in the very context of places are powerful elements of architectural education that need to be tools in future-proof architecture curricula.

​Mario Rinke​

2022-2025