Working at the intersection of architecture and other related fields, LINA is a Europe-wide network of institutions; its fellowship programme promotes emerging thinkers and practitioners who would address the environmental crisis and its ethical and social implications. In this conversation, LINA fellows — Anna Perugini, Giulio Galasso and the groups Baukreisel, Superposition and Al-Wah’at — share their concerns around matters of materiality.

This article is one of a series featuring reflections from the current cohort of LINA Fellows. You can read more from the other fellows here, and learn more about the LINA community here.

FEDERICA ZAMBELETTI / KOOZ A starting question for all of you: what features and services characterise a progressive cityscape?

ANNA PERUGINISocial equity is the foundation of a progressive cityscape. Cultural spaces for all, regardless of class, race, or gender; accessible community gardens to educate on food stability; dignified housing and schools in peripheral areas. If cities prioritised equity over profit, better relationships with the environment and the non-human would naturally develop.

GIULIO GALASSOGardens, piazzas, and affordable housing. A simple mix for daily life, yet rare in turbo-capitalist Europe.

BAUKREISELA progressive city scape should embrace mixed uses and allow for space to accommodate the physical storage of its materials and the stakeholders needed to transform it. The concept of the urban mine needs to fit the idea of a multi-purpose, mixed use urban symbiosis.

SUPERPOSITION A progressive cityscape emphasises unique, context-driven spaces that reflect the identity and needs of the community, rather than catering to the financial interests of developers. It promotes the use of local labour and material resources in the building process and fosters experimentation rather than legislating for ubiquity.

AL-WAH’ATA progressive cityscape embraces more-than-human growth, allowing weeds to emerge in its cracks and urban ecologies to flourish, repairing used and overused spaces as the city grows. It recognises more-than-humans as equal actors, not invaders, coexisting with urban life rather than being tamed within a hyper-controlled human environment.

KOOZIn the socialist neighbourhood of Belgrade’s residential block 61-64, Boulevard-s focuses on the reappropriation of large public spaces, which are gradually being occupied by commercial developments. How does your project seek to halt this process, establishing a connection between the boulevard and the block?

GIULIO GALASSOWe focus on rebuilding its collective value. The 1.7 km boulevard running through blocks 61-64 stands as a relic of an unfinished socialist masterplan: a semi-abandoned stretch of grass that has seen chaotic development of commercial activities, parking lots, and housing over the past few decades. Maintaining this public land demands substantial public resources, yet it remains a vital community asset. With self-implemented actions, the residents could turn it into accessible greenery, enhancing its communal value, thereby protecting it from speculation.

We have engaged with residents via social media and together, developed a straightforward strategy: establishing new transversal paths across the boulevard to reconnect the neighbourhood and its parks. These paths will be formed by removing barriers, working on the street surface, and using vegetation to unite the existing gardens, currently divided by the boulevard. These paths will serve as the first steps in reactivating the boulevard, encouraging residents to reclaim the rest of the area and turn it into a park. We organised a community performance to simulate crossing the boulevard, and to discuss how the project could be implemented.

KOOZ Zooming into individual materials, reuse.matters identifies and describes the economic and planning hurdles of reuse in the construction industry, showing possible solutions for the efficiency and effectiveness problems by providing space for experimentation, systematisation and automation. What are the greatest economic and planning hurdles we face? What role could the EU play and how should it step up its game?

BAUKREISELThe main hurdles are not, as one might expect, purely technological nor even economical. As we see with our research on concrete.matters, in collaboration with Bauhaus Earth and Experimental, many technological solutions have been developed over the last forty years; some have reached a technological maturity. The material waste streams from deconstruction — especially rubble — are available and cheap. The same goes for window.matters, where technological proposals have been made and tested in recent years, proving that reuse can be both ecological and economical.

The greatest obstacle is the lack of demand for reused materials, due to a misunderstanding of the whole reuse-value chain and its economic potentials within a highly-specialised building industry. By offering standardised and industrialised reuse products, risks would decrease and reuse could become an economically viable strategy. In the specific case of concrete.matters, we are therefore looking into producing prefabricated modules extracted from existing structures to allow a simple integration in new building projects.

The EU could push countries to make the information around urban mines and their possible material outputs available. At the same time, it could favour projects that are looking into the development of products composed of reused materials, to complement the research centred around technical feasibility. To do so, it could use both CO2 pricing and funding instruments like the New European Bauhaus.

KOOZ Focusing specifically on olive pomace, the by-product of olive oil, Deconstruction of an Olive explores its potential for designing objects. How does the material research explore the relationship between food systems, agricultural waste and design practices and its potentialities?

ANNA PERUGINIIn this case, the making process — that is, the act of transforming organic agricultural waste into an object — presents obstacles and practical challenges that reflect the capitalist and extractive systems in which, as a designer, I am inherently entangled. The materiality itself highlights the interplay between these systems and design practices. By using an auto-ethnographic approach, I aim to analyse these interactions.

For example, the project's location underscores the challenges of scalability and the critical link between fair trade by-products and traceable raw materials. Migrant workers, who face severe underpayment and exploitation, form the backbone of Europe's agricultural sector. By sourcing olive pomace from a village with a closely-knit community, the project ensures fair treatment for these workers, countering exploitative practices. However, as the project scales, tracing the origins of the olives and ensuring fair treatment of the workers becomes increasingly complex.

At the same time, working with organic matter raises questions about embracing its dynamic nature, including fermentation, oxidation, and odours, while also considering the efficiency of the material and its production. This tension between sustainable practices and efficiency compels me to reflect on the values that shape my design approach, pushing me to question and balance ethical considerations with practical demands.

KOOZLooking at proposals for circular frameworks, Experimental House challenges the standardised and linear approach embedded in the building industry and advocates for a methodology which adapts itself from site to site. What is the potential of rethinking architecture not as an object but as a process, seen not as a single solution but as moments of reconciliation?

SUPERPOSITIONThis perspective encourages a humane approach that engages communities, respects local contexts, and prioritises ecological sustainability. It allows architectural and build practices to be informed by the realities of material availability, labour, skills, and social dynamics rather than adhering to a one-size-fits-all model based on global standards. This process-oriented methodology invites collaboration, drawing on rich traditions and knowledge of local crafts and communities. In doing so, it allows for a richer dialogue around design, material experimentation, and cultural significance.

KOOZWild Hedges studies the ecological and socio-political complexities of the prickly pear cactus and the cochineal insect. How can the knowledge on and around local ecosystems and how these “invasive” species adapt to changes in their environments inform our own practices, both on the land and in addressing climate change?

AL-WAH’ATOur practice straddles the lines between ecology and art, academic research and community pedagogies, scientific knowledge and folk knowledge, all contributing to broader practices of care. Take, for example, the prickly pear cactus. With the recent spread of cochineal beetles across Palestine and the Mediterranean region, the insect has been thriving in the damp, dark undercarriages of the cactus, where it is more protected from the elements. As the cacti dies, it creates even more shaded areas in between its collapsing limbs that facilitate the insect’s proliferation.

The physical act of collecting dried cactus fibres, pruning healthy cactus, and harvesting the cochineal supports the cactus’ survival without the need for ‘natural enemies’ or pesticides that might otherwise compromise the wellbeing of the surrounding environment and community. In addition, local communities can make use of these abundantly available organic materials for their own benefit, using the dried fibres as a building material, the healthy cactus pads as a food source, and the cochineal as a highly regarded pigment for dyeing textiles.

Our practice is rooted in knowledge exchange, which we generate through our fieldwork — observations, conversations, and experimentation with local artisans, farmers and researchers — which in turn feeds into wider collective practices, through community workshops. This iterative process adapts to the changing needs of both the project and the local community, in tune with seasonal shifts and the ways that local ecologies adapt to global climate change.

Bios

Al-Wah’at is an artist research collective formed by Ailo Ribas, Gabriella Demczuk and Areej Ashhab in 2022, committed to growing communal practices in ecologies typically regarded as hostile and lifeless. Their work seeks to counter harmful anthropocentric and colonial narratives around arid lands and futures by engaging with a diversity of knowledges. Al-Wah’at is set to join the Jan Van Eyck Residency Program in 2025.

Baukreisel is an interdisciplinary group of architects, engineers, political and social scientists, economists, and lawyers. Its main focus is on the reuse of material in the building industry. Baukreisel started out as advocates for discarded materials, showing how high-quality materials can be reused from what the building industry considers "waste". Their projects take into account the entire building process, from dismantling to processing, transforming, designing and reinstalling, ensuring the viability of reuse.

Giulio Galasso is an architect and researcher based in Zurich. His field of research is twentieth century Italian middle-class housing; from 2023 he runs continentale, an architecture practice based in Zurich focused on architecture for daily life. Through continentale he works on the climate adaptation of post-war housing neighbourhoods across Europe, as well as on the reuse of vacant buildings in Italy.

Anna Perugini is an interdisciplinary designer who engages in material experimentation, one-off commissions, and mass-produced products. Experimenting with matter and making techniques, her research delves into materials and their cultural significance. Perugini investigates materials and by-products, examining their roles within ecosystems and extraction contexts.

Superposition is an experimental architecture studio founded by Donn Holohan and Elspeth Lee, operating between Hong Kong and Ireland. Challenging conventional building practices, Superposition emphasises the importance of community engagement, resilience, and adaptability. By viewing architecture as a dynamic process rather than a fixed object, Superposition aims to address urgent issues of housing and civic space while redefining architectural production.

Federica Zambeletti is the founder and managing director of KoozArch. She is an architect, researcher and digital curator whose interests lie at the intersection between art, architecture and regenerative practices. In 2015 Federica founded KoozArch with the ambition of creating a space where to research, explore and discuss architecture beyond the limits of its built form. Parallel to her work at KoozArch, Federica is Architect at the architecture studio UNA and researcher at the non-profit agency for change UNLESS where she is project manager of the research "Antarctic Resolution". Federica is an Architectural Association School of Architecture in London alumni.