Brighton to host architectural summer school with reclamation theme

The Brighton hosting team will be led by senior lecturer and leading sustainable architect Duncan Baker-Brown - best known for his work on the Brighton Waste House - alongside Anthony Roberts, Nick Gant and Dr Ryan Woodard. They will be joined online by partners from across Europe, including re-use experts Rotor from Belgium, and Bellastock from France, currently involved in deconstructing the 59-storey Montparnasse Tower in Paris.

The School of Re-construction is part of a €4.33million EU European Regional Development Fund project entitled ‘Facilitating the Circulation of Reclaimed Building Elements’ (FCRBE) which is running until 2022. Its objectives include creating an online directory of over 1500 specialised salvage dealers and allied businesses in North-West Europe, plus a pre-demolition 'tool kit' to help assess the re-use potential of materials and products present in buildings slated for demolition.

Duncan Baker-Brown

The Brighton summer school not only responds to the worldwide declaration of Climate and Ecological Emergency, but also taps into Brighton and Hove’s ambition as a city to become Net Carbon Neutral by 2030.

Participants from different regions will form teams to work with designers and makers to re-think and re-use disassembled materials, underpinned by the ethos that “there’s no such thing as waste, just stuff in the wrong place!”. Each team will also create a digital library of their work, to be shared, interrogated and re-imagined as a ‘new’ proposition.

The School will also explore re-using building materials under different 'themes'. These include The Raw (re-using material without alteration), The Useless (finding purpose for materials that are usually discarded), and The Off-Cut (finding ways to integrate awkward sized material into workable structures).

Students should apply via the FCRBE INTERREG website (including a motivational statement). The application deadline is 23 April, If selected, students will then need to register by 31 May.

There will also be a series of talks with key speakers from the industry and the partners from FCRBE that will be open to the public. Updates on these events and how to register will be forthcoming on the Summer School website.