Kontakte – Das Jahrbuch der KIT-Fakultät für Architektur 2023

THE FORM OF CIRCULARITY
Harvesting potential circular futures of OMA’s
NHOW Hotel Amsterdam
Design Studio, Summer Term 2022
Introduction
Architecture takes actively part in giving form to energyintensive
ways of life, and life’s energy-intensive urban and
rural landscapes. In a take on form follows function, we
could say that the current standard is: form follows energy.
Architecture’s spatial and formal (aesthetic) organization,
the use of materials, technology, and urban planning gives
shape to this dominant energy and material consuming paradigm
of our fossil economy. Sustainable and circular thinking
in architecture wishes to offer an alternative beyond
fossil form. It is about a paradigm shift towards a regenerative
architecture, while providing a new plan how to live.
In most cases circular construction focuses upon
the material used, and looks at how materials can be reused,
adapted, recycled, biobased, etc. This studio investigated
how to extend circular strategies in architecture beyond
the realm of just proper material use. The studio does not
ignore but engages architecture’s capacity to express cultural
meaning. We asked ourselves what kind of spatial concepts
can be produced through circular architecture. To be
able to explore this reciprocity between circularity and
built form, we distinguished 4 forms of circular future expressions
(4 kinds of circular forms): Invisible Circularity,
Circular Hacking, Circular Collage, and Circular Montrage.
In the studio we investigated — through a series of lectures,
reading seminars and design projects — these 4 forms of
circularity, and worked on the extension of circular thinking’s
vocabulary.
D Student group, Summer Term 2022
E The studio assignment was to
re-imagine and redeem OMA/Koolhaas
NHOW hotel in Amsterdam after its
expected lifespan of 40 years
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