Crafting Circularity Rethinking Sustainable Design and Construction in Architecture Education

How can architectural education respond meaningfully to the climate crisis? And how can we let students feel the limitations and potentials of working directly with reclaimed building materials?
Positioning architects as key agents of change, this book argues for a fundamental shift from extractive design thinking toward availability-based design—starting not from abstract form or resources, but from what already exists. Through an Erasmus+ collaboration between five European architecture schools the authors document and critically reflect on a series of design-and-build workshops in Amsterdam, Trondheim, and Volos, each embedded in a distinct local construction culture and each exploring a different dimension of circular practice: sourcing and understanding materials, reuse of components, and reuse of structures. By placing students in direct contact with reclaimed materials and real construction constraints, Crafting Circularity shows how learning-through-making can embed circular thinking at the core of the design studio.

With contributions from Mario Rinke, Frederik Vandyck, Jeroen Van Mechelen, Machiel Spaan, Carmen Rist-Stadelmann, Urs Meister, August Schmidt, Arnstein Gilberg, Maria Vrontissi as well as Martin Høgh Olsen, Anders Ebbesen, Robbe Pacquée, Daniel Stockhammer, Fabiano Micocci, Miriam Dunn, Camille Fauvel, Tiphaine Abenia, Rafael Novais Passarelli, Ute Groba, Alessandro Tellini, Jean-Philippe Possoz, Yvonne Lub, and Floor Nijdeken

• Teaching availability-based design in architectural education
• Practical tools and transferable lessons for integrating circular construction into design studios
• Brings together architecture teachers, researchers, and practitioners