What happens when timber construction moves beyond individual flagship projects and becomes part of a wider system? Drawing on Estonia’s experience, this presentation explores how public-sector ambition, architectural quality and industrial capacity can reshape the way we build – from schools and kindergartens to complex public projects and the decarbonisation of existing building stock. What role can the state play in turning ambition into systemic change?

This session is in English.

HouseEurope! is a pan-European nonprofit and policy lab working toward a new understanding of value in the construction sector – socially, ecologically, and economically. They advocate for a fundamental value shift: from the economic rules that guide our decisions to the stories we tell about buildings. Working across a wide network that links practice and policy, HouseEurope! asks what it would take to unlock the potential of what already exists?

This session is in English

As the built environment faces growing pressure from climate change, resource scarcity and an increasing demand to reduce emissions, one question becomes more relevant than ever: what if the most sustainable building is the one that already exists?

For more than three decades, Anne Lacaton has challenged conventional thinking by proving that transformation can create greater architectural, social and environmental value than demolition and new construction. Through internationally acclaimed projects such as Grand Parc Bordeaux and Tour Bois-le-Prêtre, she has demonstrated how existing buildings can be reimagined to improve quality of life while dramatically reducing resource consumption.

This session is in english.

A take-back program is a beautifully simple concept that is deceivingly complex. The logistics of designing, establishing, and utilizing a take-back program requires doing everything just a little bit differently – from the way a product is designed, to how specs are written, and how contractors stage projects. So how do you do it?

In this session we’re giving step-by-step tips and insights on how you can use a take-back program to meet your circularity, carbon, and material health goals. You’ll hear how it all fits together: from certifications that establish the framework, how a manufacturer develops the program for their products, project teams designing around take-back, and how contractors make a reality on the job site. You’ll walk away with an inside look and best-practices you can apply to your own projects.

This debate is in English

CEMLOOP XL is pioneering industrial-scale fibre cement recycling.This first-of-its-kind solution uses CCUS to transform Fibre Cement waste into high-value secondary raw materials, enabling new Etex products with a lower footprint. A major step toward a fully circular, decarbonised construction industry.

This session is in English.

This session presents possible solutions to our key challenge: how to work with biogenic and circular materials whose variability does not fit current industrial standards, machines, and design processes. Rather than forcing uniformity, a new paradigm is needed – one that embraces difference, variability, and small-batch production.

To develop such approaches the RAW project brings together material engineering, architecture, robotics, fabrication, and data science. Working with fast growing fibres, biopolymers, and reclaimed timber, it links novel methods for non-destructive assessment at the level of individual elements or small batches with design and fabrication – turning variability into a controllable design parameter.

By building on existing workflows and introducing computational and robotic methods, RAW supports: distributed and integrated production, local manufacturing with local materials, and design processes incorporating life cycle assessment and real material performance.

The session brings together international experts to present emerging methods and solutions, including how RAW shares findings and advances standardisation through global forums. The session highlights uncertainty as a driver for innovation in circular, bio-based construction.

Moderator: Kristine Nore

This debate is in English.

Canada’s timber industry is undergoing rapid transformation. Trade uncertainty, tariffs and shifting markets have prompted new government policies, investment, and innovation in timber construction. Dubbeldam’s presentation explores how economic disruption has been a catalyst for changes in regulation, manufacturing and building practices, enabling timber to be used at greater scale and in new building types. It also draws on Dubbeldam’s research into timber systems that are transforming the design and delivery of housing.

This presentation is in English

Renovation is a strategic solution to achieving Europe’s climate and energy targets, yet it still stays slow, fragmented and craft-based. This talk shows how digital transformation and smart governance turn renovation into a repeatable, industrialized process. Drawing on Estonia example from fully digital spatial planning to data-driven renovation strategy and One-Stop-Shop services, we explore how collaboration, well established standards and quality building data can finally set the renovation wave in motion.

This session is in English.

The most sustainable building may be the one that is already there, but choosing transformation over demolition requires us to see value where conventional development often sees limitations.

At b+, existing buildings are not treated simply as structures to be preserved, but as resources with social, ecological and cultural value, and as starting points for new architectural possibilities.

Through projects such as Midway Contemporary Art Garage in Minneapolis and San Gimignano Lichtenberg in Berlin, Jonas Janke will explore how working with what already exists can fundamentally change the architectural process.

Rather than designing towards a fixed end state, these projects embrace transformation as an ongoing process: adapting buildings to new uses, working with their constraints, and allowing them to evolve over time. What does this approach demand from architects and what becomes possible when we stop asking what we should build, and start by asking what we can do with what is already there?

This session is in English.

What happens when we stop seeing buildings as disposable objects and start treating them as part of our collective memory and future?

In her acclaimed book and documentary Jarðsetning (Interment), Icelandic architect and author Anna María Bogadóttir explores the demolition of a modernist landmark – not simply as the end of a building, but as a reflection of the values that shape our built environment. Through architecture, film and storytelling, she asks fundamental questions about permanence, reuse and the cultural consequences of demolition.

In this keynote, Bogadóttir invites you to rethink the lifecycle of buildings and the narratives that drive the decisions to preserve, transform or replace them. At a time of climate pressure, resource scarcity and growing uncertainty, her work offers a powerful reminder that the future of architecture is not only about designing new buildings, but also about redefining our relationship with the ones we already have.

This session is in English.

In order to reduce glazing area in buildings and yet improve the indoor climate, skyview could potentially be the way to go. Join us for a lecture about skyview, visual comfort and stack effect.

This session is in English. 

Coasts, estuaries, deltas, and rivers are dynamic, ever-changing landscapes – always in motion, eroding, flooding, shifting, disappearing. In the face of the climate crisis, rather than engineering against uncertainty, SCAPE designs with it, working with dynamic ecological and hydrological systems. Drawing from projects across scales and geographies, this talk explores how landscape architecture can shift from amenity to a climate-adapted, regenerative model, one that anticipates change, engages living systems and mends the relationship between humans and their environment.

This session is in English.

Sustainable construction material research plays a key role in reducing the environmental impact of the built environment while ensuring long-term durability and resilience. This presentation will provide a general introduction to current research within sustainable construction materials, followed by a focus on nature-inclusive design for marine infrastructure. Bio-receptive concrete can support marine organisms that form calcium carbonate layers on the surface, potentially reducing chloride ingress and improving durability. Examples from laboratory, modeling, and field studies will be presented, together with perspectives on life-cycle assessment with the intent to extend service-life of structures.

This session is in English.

The world around us is in a vulnerable state. All over the world, we see people struggling to sustain their lives and livelihoods in the context they inhabit.

When we discuss rebuilding, we tend to focus on the physical and economic efforts needed. But when both built and natural environments are challenged, threatened, or even devastated, social and cultural resources are extremely valuable and must not be underestimated.

This debate discusses how we can work locally to rebuild during crises, what role community, culture and arts can play – and why process is sometimes as important if not more important than the physical product.

The debate presents ongoing work in the context of India, Denmark and Ukraine and is moderated by Ingeborg Hau, co-editor of the book “Rebuilding is not a metaphor”.

Moderator: Ingeborg Hau

This debate is in English. 

For some, an EPD is a box to tick. For Petersen Tegl, a brickmaker since 1791, it didn’t cut anything until they compared two nearly identical raw materials and found something they didn’t expect. Jesper Culmsee (Petersen Tegl) and Selma Al-Zohairi (Nordic LCA) join Cato Hansen (LCA.no) to talk about what happens when paperwork turns into something you use – and what’s coming next, from CO2 limit values in the Danish Building Regulations to the EU’s Digital Product Passport.

This session is in English. 

Eskilstrup Kulturhus explores how we can preserve and transform existing buildings rather than demolish them – even amid economic uncertainty, shifting funding landscapes, and broader societal challenges. Through phased renovation, local co-financing, material reuse, and strong community ownership, the project demonstrates how uncertainty can become a catalyst for collective action, resilience, and green transition rather than stagnation.

In just 12 months, the initiative evolved from a single-person effort into a community-led project that has secured more than 1.4 million DKK in public and private funding, engaged more than 200 local citizens in shaping the future of the building, and launched a successful crowdfunding campaign inspired by Denmark’s tradition of folkeaktier.

The session will begin with a presentation by architect and project lead Kathryn Larsen, who will share the project’s journey and the strategies used to navigate uncertainty through community mobilization, partnership building, and incremental transformation. The presentation will be followed by a panel discussion on the role of robust local community infrastructure in supporting long-term social and environmental resilience. The panel features Britta Lange (Venner af Eskilstrup Kulturhus), Christian Pagh ( Mellemfolkeligt Samvirke), Manuela Sobral (Sustainary), and Emma Nielsen (freelance sociologist and project leader), moderated by Olympia Nouska (Lecturer, MA Political Architecture).

Moderator: Olympia Nouska

This debate is in English.