Material Gardens

The research focuses on material yards, where building materials are collected after deconstruction and before reuse.

Following a doctoral research (“Monumental Ground. Infrastructures, Construction Sites, Landscape”, 2022) which delved into the disposal and transformation, within landscape, of the excavated materials linked to construction and deconstruction processes, the postdoctoral research wants to deepen the issue of reuse, Circular Baukultur and material culture, in the context of climate change and resource scarcity.

It focuses on the building materials yards, or Material Gardens, where construction materials are collected after deconstruction and before reuse.

Material Gardens are understood as both real and metaphorical lands of urban, social and political transformations, where new behaviors, cultural approaches and architectural knowledge emerge. In particular, the research addresses the following questions: how can material depots impact design thinking? How can the (often overlooked) sites of materials collection and organization enter landscape and architectural vocabularies? What kinds of Gardens are emerging from the intermingling of material, human, and landscape agencies?