ABSTRACT
How can historical awareness facilitate future change-making possibilities based on principles of material circularity? In the studio course “Constructive Logic – Wasted!” at The Oslo School of Architecture and Design (Spring 2022) run by Assistant Professors Andrea Pinochet and Lina Broström, students practiced a pedagogical method in which they examined the full building process from extraction of raw materials, historical material contexts, production of elements, transportation routes, energy inputs, afterlives of materials, to the potential for reuse of material waste—by focusing on one particular material. This chapter examines how students conducted in-depth studies of materials by focusing on the recycled composite geopolymer concrete (GPC), recently developed by Norwegian start-up company Saferock. The GPC is a low carbon sustainable building material based on circular principles which answers the demand for circular economy in the building industry through upcycling of mining waste from Norwegian mines. By discussing the cross-sector pedagogical collaboration between the Oslo School of Architecture and Design and Saferock, the chapter conceptualizes a ethical pedagogical method, deep ecology by design, inspired by the environmental philosophical writings of Norwegian philosophers Arne Næss and Sigmund Kvaløy. The method is a historically situated and future-oriented experimental method for advancing a deeper understanding of materials.
