AOB took part in the research seminar Designing in a finite world: urbanism, architecture and resource-consciousness, hosted by iiTSE and OpenLab.brussels (ULB + VUB).
The seminar explored how architectural education can engage with existing materials, landscapes, and everyday spatial practices through fieldwork, observation, and resource-conscious design approaches. Discussions focused on learning from local contexts, reusing material resources, and strengthening place-based and environmentally responsible design practices in architectural pedagogy.
Fall School 2026 – Redefining Architecture Through Collective Making
The 2026 edition of the Fall School is already taking shape. Following the spirit of previous collaborations, RWTH Aachen University, TU Wien and KU Leuven have committed to continuing this shared initiative. At the same time, we warmly welcome additional universities interested in joining with a dedicated group of students.
The program is primarily aimed at master’s and postgraduate students. Applications from bachelor groups may be considered to ensure a balanced and diverse cohort.
A Cross-Disciplinary Exchange
At its core, the Fall School is built on the conviction that tomorrow’s architectural challenges demand collective intelligence. Participants work in rotating, multidisciplinary teams, fostering continuous knowledge exchange across different academic backgrounds and cultural contexts.
Guided by architects, craftspeople, and researchers, students move beyond conventional studio teaching. Learning unfolds through direct engagement, shared experimentation, and critical reflection.
Hands-On Ateliers: From Raw Matter to Structure
The workshops focus on geo- and bio-based materials such as earth and natural fibres, encouraging participants to “think with their hands.” Structured in thematic pillars—from material sampling and testing to prototyping and large-scale construction—the ateliers explore regenerative architecture, bioregional strategies, and responsible material cycles.
By working at different scales, students gain insight into the transformation of raw matter into spatial structures, bridging scientific understanding with practical application.
A Holistic Learning Experience
Complementing the ateliers, additional formats expand the dialogue throughout the week:
Morning Lectures
Faculty members from participating institutions present their research and teaching approaches, strengthening academic exchange across European architecture schools.
Evening Debates
Public discussions bring together academics and practitioners to address emerging forms of practice, learning through making, and pathways for upscaling regenerative strategies within policy and industry.
Booklet of Brussels Projects
Each participant receives a curated guide to circular initiatives and architectural practices in Brussels, supporting independent exploration and serving as a reference for future studios and research.
Co-financed by Erasmus+, a program of the European Union.
In the framework of the Soil to Surface course, 35 students took part in a workshop at the Alwakan Projectin Brussels on 15–16 January 2026. The course introduced ecological finishing techniques, with a focus on clay plaster.
Over two days, students combined short theory sessions with hands-on practice, exploring the properties, potentials, and ecological value of clay plasters.
A highlight of the workshop was its collaborative setting: participants worked alongside the Alwakan Project community, who are renovating their building collectively. This environment encouraged reflection on participatory construction and showed how working directly with materials can foster care and responsibility in shared spaces.
The workshop combined practical craft with ecological awareness, giving students the chance to work with natural materials and experience the value of building together.
Over the course of five intensive days in Brussels, 120 students, teachers, and practitioners from our chair Act of Building at RWTH Aachen—together with participants from the KU Leuven Faculty of Architecture, Building Beyond Borders, the Estonian Academy of Arts, and TU Wien—came together to explore what regenerative architecture can mean for the future of the built environment.
This international collaboration invited participants to rethink how we learn, how we build, and how we take responsibility for the materials that shape our world.
Learning Through Materials
Throughout the week, students engaged deeply with bio- and geo-sourced materials by way of visits, lectures, and three hands-on workshop tracks:
Atelier SITE engaged directly with real-scale construction through on-site experimentation. Participant learned to produce and apply earth-based materials to larger structures, using techniques such as plastering, light-earth wall infill, and other natural building methods. This atelier connected material experimentation with full-scale application, offering insight into the realities of regenerative constructions.
Atelier LAB dived into the science and art of earth materials. Participants studied granulometry, biofibres, and the behaviour of natural components through small-scale testing. The atelier introduced methods for analysing and assessing soil for its potential in construction—uncovering the transformative processes that turn raw earth into building materials, pushing the boundaries of conventional material practices.
Atelier PROTO explored spatial design through hands-on experimentation. Participants worked with bamboo to build a dome structure and test various connecting elements, effectively “sketching” in three dimensions.
The ideas, insights, and relationships formed during this week offer a glimpse into a more regenerative architectural future—one shaped by curiosity, responsibility, and collaboration.
Co-financed by Erasmus+, a program of the European Union.
In the summer semester of 2025, the Paludi Pavilion design-and-build workshop brought together Master’s students from RWTH Aachen and TU Munich to explore regenerative construction in the wetlands of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. Led by Niklas Fanelsa, Theresa Zschäbitz, and Quentin Bourguignon, and in collaboration with the Greifswald Moor Centrum and Wasserwerk der Zukunft, the project focused on the use of Paludi materials: biomass resources from rewetted peatlands such as elder, reed, birch, willow, and grass. Over the course of the semester, students engaged with vernacular and experimental techniques, culminating in a one-week building workshop in Malchin where three timber pavilions were realized as open-air stages for the local Moortheater.
The workshop emphasized material-specific design, ecological cycles, and collective making. Students prototyped and constructed façade systems using braided grass, woven willow, pyrolyzed birch bark, and thatched reed. Preparatory research at RWTH Aachen and TU Munich informed the applied techniques. The project was enriched by public lectures and local engagement, fostering knowledge exchange between students, practitioners, and community actors.
The Paludi Pavilion served as a prototype for how architecture can emerge from place—grounded in bioregional resources, cultural landscapes, and collaborative practices, offering a situated response to contemporary questions of material, ecology, and construction.
Design, Construction and execution planning:
Junior professorship act of building RWTH Aachen University
The HORST Anthill Pavilion in Asiat Park, Vilvoorde, Belgium, was created for the Horst Arts and Music Festival. Designed to house Artist Afrah Shafiq’s video game installation ‘Where the Ants Go’ and the pavilion results from a collaboration between Afrah Shafiq, the RWTH Aachen University’s Junior Professorship “act of building” (aob), BC Materials and architect Jeremy Waterfield. The pavilion which was considered as a test design for BC Materials compressed earth blocks, also offered the opportunity to try reed as a façade material. Built by 45 RWTH students over two weeks of construction workshop in the framework of the annual Horst Ateliers, it showcases innovative, sustainable building practices in combination. The pavilion embodies a forward-thinking approach to architecture, merging vernacular techniques with new and rediscovered materials to create an expressive design that reflects future possibilities for sustainable construction while teaching students and professionals the material-specific craft techniques during its construction.
Client: HORST ARTS AND MUSIC, Vilvoorde, Belgium
Artist: Afrah Shafiq
Architect: Jeremy Waterfield
Construction design and execution: Theresa Zschäbitz (aob & BC architects) Bregt Hoppenbrouwers (BC materials) with the students of aob Junior professorship act of building RWTH Aachen University, Martha Vandemaesen (Democo)
Structural Engineer: buro kiss
Guest curator: Diana Campbell Betancourt, Artistic Director of Samdani Art Foundation and Chief Curator of Dhaka Art Summit
ALLIANCES is the title of the upcoming Science Day 2024 organized by the recently established Junior Professorship of Construction and Design – “act of building” (aob).
Since many years we have been witnessing the surge of multiple crisis linked to the architecture field, ranging from the climate crisis to the housing crisis. These events have been in part shaping the architectural discourse and inspired the narrative of many present (and future) practices. The architectural society has been discussing and developing ideas in response to these challenges. How these responses are received depend heavily on political and market-driv- en agendas; architectural ideas for the future risk being limited in their implementation by outdated and systemic relations between humans and nature. New sorts of alliances must be set up in order to break this pattern.
The Science Day wishes to probe for alliances along 3 strategies which the chair of aob has been working on since its start 2 years ago. We have invited a variety of international architects and think- ers to present provocations which they belief to be needed in order stimulate a radical shift in the mindset of architecture scenes and local construction sectors.
The event will take place in an informal setting of which the audi- ence is an integral part. We look forward to a fruitful and inspiring exchange. We hope to raise new questions and ideas, to motivate to act and, most importantly, to become allies of change.
Prototyping Architecture
“Prototyping Architecture” suggests looking at architecture as an ever-changing process rather than a fixed, finished structure. In this perspective, buildings are not stagnant but continually adapt and transform. They act like prototypes, evolving and presenting new possibilities while being build, used, lived in. Architecture, in this view, remains open-ended and responsive. This approach highlights the dynamic nature of architectural projects, and their capacity for change. It encourages us to reconsider architecture as an ongoing process, embracing its continuous evolution and adaptability.
We’ll explore this topic together with provocations of Nikolaus Hirsch (moderator), Andrea Klinge, Pauline Lefevbre and Laurens Bekemans.
Material Agencies
Modern distinctions, like nature/human and nature/culture, are replaced by a focus on extended processes over time and space, where networks of people and matter overlap and differ. Material agencies go beyond the influence of designers; it is materials and their cultures that define the possibilities of our constructions. Shifting attention to matter as an active force, the aesthetic and ethical aspects of architecture take on new meanings.
We’ll explore this topic together with provocations of Veronique Patteeuw (moderator), Michael Ghyoot, Guillaume Habert and Ken De Cooman.
Collective Learning
In recent decades, we have witnessed a significant rise in the prevalence of practices organized as collectives and collaborations across various domains, in particular creative agencies. These innovative structures have delivered exceptional achievements, reshaping architecture, and architecture models. However, one sphere where this transformation has been slower to take root is within educational institutions, notably universities.
We wish to delve into the evolving landscape of collaborative structures and their influence on education. Universities, often characterized by their bureaucratic nature and deep-rooted traditions, tend to resist change. The established norms and structures within these institutions can be resistant to adaptation, making it difficult to introduce new approaches.
We’ll explore this topic together with provocations of Axel Sowa (moderator), James Binning, Angelika Hinterbrandner and Theresa Zschäbitz.
The summer term workshop took place during the white week, from the 31st of May to 3rd of June. This year, three courses took part simultaneously: the bachelors’ as well as the masters’ elective course, and the students completing the year-long M2 project.
Within the course earth construction workshop, bachelor students completed a pavilion which built on the work of the previous years’ workshop. The ambitious design proposal included a curved brick wall – using factory-made loam bricks – and a wall built with unfired earth bricks. The students constructed both in the span of three days, learning different bricklaying techniques and masonry tricks of the trade.
The pavilion was topped off with a shed roof, reusing an old truck tarpaulin and steel beams. A number of tension belts connect the roof to the walls and the grounding plate, and make the entire construction easily demountable.
The master students of the elective course geosourced prototyping workshop acted as construction teams for the students completing act 3 within their M2 project the architect changemaker. Each team built a 1:1 scale model of a prototype, which had been designed by the M2 students in the course of the semester. The approaches and techniques varied from using a self-developed mortar to fully ramming a tried and tested material mix using earth from a local quarry. The individual formworks had been engineered by the M2 students, as well as the planning of the construction. This entire process was a complex undertaking, but all students were highly motivated and really pitched in – we ended up with three beautiful prototype models!
With so many people on site in Brussels at BC materials, the construction plot was a busy hub of many different things happening at once. The weather played its part as well and ensured warm and sunny days throughout the week. Lectures from BC staff and a visit to the Parckfarm project by BuildingBeyondBorders rounded off the week.
AOB would like to invite you to this year’s annual exhibition of the Faculty of Architecture at RWTH Aachen University, where we will be present. Our pop-up presentation in the foyer of the faculty will deal with the topics of sustainable building and the circular economy, as well as show perspectives for tackling contemporary building tasks with ecological architecture.
In addition to our pop-up presentation, you can have a look at the work of our students in the Lehrstuhl. There you can learn more about the importance of sustainable building and the use of earth as an innovative building material.
The annual exhibition will be held on 24 and 25 May 2023 bundled with the Science Day at the Reiff Museum.
We look forward to welcoming you at the Lehrstuhl.
AOB presents the new course offering for the upcoming summer semester. The overarching theme is the development of creative and technically sophisticated solutions for construction tasks using sustainable building materials. Both theoretical knowledge and practical skills in dealing with new materials and production methods will be taught. The programme is aimed at students who want to expand their skills in the field of modern construction.
During the White Week, the „geosourced prototyping workshop“ is offered as an excursion to Brussels. The course is intended for all students who want to expand their practical skills in working with natural building materials. Participants will work in small groups and have the opportunity to develop and implement their own projects. Students will be supported by our lecturers, who will be able to share their experience and expertise. Registration is possible for both Master’s and Bachelor’s students.
For the first time, „BXL Circular Hub“ will be offered as a free design course for Bachelor students. The module will look at the development of a place for production in the city as part of the Brussels KANAL Plan, including recycling and local production of building materials in the sense of a circular economy. We will design the circular hub, a production site for several Brussels companies involved in the production and distribution of circular building materials that through synergies of their production processes and knowledge form a catalyst for the change of the construction sector.
In the studio „the architect changemaker“ continues the M2 project from the winter semester. Here, the focus is also on practical implementation of the previous research as well as scaling up the developed geo-based materials, which will the tested in 1:1 prototypes.
