FCRBE - Facilitating the circulation of reclaimed building elements in Northwestern Europe

Important notice:

The Digital School of Re-construction (Digi-SoR-c) summer school will run from Monday 2^nd August 2021 for two weeks.

Thank you to everyone who has already submitted an application. We have informed each person who applied in 2020 of the change in plans. We will send each of you confirmation of the new dates and contact you to find out whether you are still interested in being considered in 2021 (those who were eligible in 2020 will be eligible in 2021 regardless if they are studying or not). We will update all North West Europe (NWE) universities of this announcement, and we will be in touch to ask them to promote the SoR-c Summer School. Applications will re-open in March 2021. Thank you once again for your interest in the Summer School and your patience in these uncertain times.

From left to right: Duncan Baker-Brown, Antony Roberts, Nick Gant, Dr. Ryan Woodard, Siobhan O'Dowd.

We will be joined (online) by partners from across North-West Europe*, including re-use experts Rotor from Belgium, and Bellastock from France, who are deconstructing the 59-storey Montparnasse Tower in Paris.

The School of Re-construction is part of an EU ERDF €4.33million Interreg NWE project entitled, ‘Facilitating the Circulation of Reclaimed Building Elements’ (FCRBE) which runs from 2019 to 2022. It will deliver, among others:

• An online directory of more than 1500 specialised salvage dealers and allied businesses in North-West Europe.
• A pre-demolition 'tool kit' designed to help clients assess the re-use potential of materials and products present in buildings slated for demolition.
• A specifications manual to help construction professionals integrate reclaimed building materials and products in large-scale projects.
• Test and promote tools through 36 pilot operations taking place in large (de)-construction projects across North-West Europe.

This project responds to the worldwide declaration of Climate and Ecological Emergency, and locally to Brighton and Hove’s ambition to be Net Carbon Neutral by 2030.

*North-West Europe includes Ireland, United Kingdom, Belgium, Luxembourg, France, Germany, Switzerland  and the Netherlands.

Topic 2021: Re-think Re-Use

Digital School of Re-construction 2021

Students from different regions will work in teams with designers and makers to re-think and re-use, through the re-construction of disassembled materials to create a series of thought-provoking digital design interventions, that will prove that “there’s no such thing as waste, just stuff in the wrong place!”

Drawing on the partners and work of the Interreg FCRBE project the Summer School will include discussions and debates on topics relating to urban mining, resource mapping, deconstruction, re-use, and buildings as material banks.

Drawing from their immediate environment’s, each participant will survey a chosen artefact, room, or building with a view to digitally unpacking and deconstructing them. Each of the eight teams will create their own digital library; to be shared, interrogated, understood and re-imagined as a ‘new’ proposition.

Since the rise of modernity, design usually precedes construction. Consequently, designers generally develop their projects around standardized, stable and predictable construction products or they order specialised production of bespoke elements that will match their requirements. In essence, reclaimed products are the exact opposite of this: they are largely heterogeneous, unpredictable, and situated. In this sense, they question the habits of designers.

We will tackle this question by challenging each team to design and realise a small construction out of reclaimed elements in response to one of the workshop themes as detailed below.

These themes pose questions and provide a particular ‘lens’ for re-structuring elements that are usually discarded or re-worked. Each team will have an array of digitally reclaimed elements sourced from across the Interreg FCRBE region to choose and experiment with.

All these realisations are small living laboratories that will allow you to have direct  experience with these challenges. The two-week-long workshop will culminate in a carefully curated online exhibition of these experimental design interventions.

The following themes should be read as specific ‘lenses’ through which participants will look at their particular ‘libraries of elements’. Please note that they might be slightly adapted depending on what will have been surveyed and collected by each of the teams taking part.

Theme 1 THE RAW:

The aim of re-use that will be explored, is how to effect a new condition by NOT altering, or ‘re-cooking’, the materials gained by reclamation. By working with the dismantled elements in their ‘raw’, or unaltered form – what are the possibilities of reconfiguring them into new, spatial and material combinations?

Theme 2 THE ‘USELESS’:

Materials deemed ‘useless’ are often cheap, can be found in abundance and as a result, are often discarded as not worthy of consideration. How can we make these rejected elements useful and desirable for construction?

Theme 3 THE BY-PRODUCT:

Materials that exist as a by-product of conventional modes of production can often be overlooked and ignored. How can they become one of the re-fashioned and delivered as a newly envisioned focus that supports the act of re-use?

Theme 4 THE HYBRID:

Systems and materials are often standardised and configured in conflicting or unaccommodating arrays of sizes and shapes, which generates more waste. How can they be combined to create new, workable relationships through the crude use of montage?

Theme 5 THE ‘OFF-CUT’:

The off-cut is notoriously known for being ‘not quite long enough’. By only utilising these awkward materials the question again arises, how can these usually discarded elements be re-examined and re-combined to form workable structures and envelopes that might not conform to the notion of the standard?

SoR-c Summer School Programme (details to follow)

Those who have applied in 2020 will be contacted to find out if they would like to be considered for the 2021 summer school.

Applications to the School of Re-construction will re-open in March 2021 and will close on 23 April 2021.

To apply you will need to follow a two-step process: an online application and a motivational statement. Students who supplied this information in 2020 will be considered for the 2021 event.

80 places will be offered to students from across North-West European regions. Successful applicants will be confirmed by 14^th May 2021.  Registration will be by 31 May 2021.

The two-step process involves:

Step 1.  Fill in this application form, which will require the following:

•  Confirmation that you can demonstrate proof of registration or offer within a school of design, architecture, construction or engineering (or related area) in 2020 or 2021
• Full name, country of residence, address, email address, telephone contact, university, name of course and the qualification level that you’re currently studying at.
• This step includes agreement to both the Summer School privacy notice and the Terms and Conditions.

Step 2. Please provide the following information in a PDF file and email it to us at School-of-Re-construction@brighton.ac.uk.   

• Your name and the name of the university you are attending in 2021.
• A motivation statement (max. 500 words) inspired by one or more of the themes, outlining your skills and suitability for these chosen themes. Cite three references, this can include books, articles, films, pieces of art or architecture projects, with a short explanation of their relevance to the chosen workshop themes. Make it clear whether work referenced is your work or others.

FAQ

Get in touch:

Email:  School-of-Re-construction@brighton.ac.uk

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