Inspiring tangible examples of building with and for communities, while respecting the stories of the past and shaping those of the future

 

Hosted by UHasselt, ReS-Cu Research Group and Postgraduate Certificate Building Beyond Borders and supported by the ITTT network

Date: 27 and 28th of October 2027

Track Leads: Griet Verbeeck, Elke Knapen, Peggy Winkels (UHasselt) and Cornelia Faisst (University of Liechtenstein)

 

 

About this track:

 

Building Beyond Borders is a cross-border learning platform that seeks to expand knowledge and inspire action towards regenerative and bioregional ways of research, practice and education in designing and building. Its Postgraduate Certificate is a learn-and-act programme for graduates and professionals who want to become changemakers in the built environment. Combining theoretical insights, practical skills, and hands-on experience, participants work together with local communities to realise a medium-sized, real-life building project.

 

Across four editions of Building Beyond Borders, we have experienced how deeply transformative such a design-and-build journey can be — not only for the participants, but also for local stakeholders, communities, and everyone involved along the way. 

 

Through these experiences, memory has emerged as a powerful force for building differently. Memory can live in materials, places, landscapes, building techniques, and crafts. It lives in the stories of people and communities, in the traces left by previous generations, and in the relationships that are formed through making and caring together. It can influence what we choose to keep, what we choose to transform, and what we choose to pass on.

 

For us, memory is therefore not only about looking back. It can be a source of care, connection, and energy for positive change. It can help us understand where we come from, recognise what matters to people and places, and imagine more respectful futures.

 

What are we interested in? 

 

For this track, we invite contributions of researchers, practitioners and educators that share tangible experiences of building, making, reusing, or organising together - projects, processes, practices, or events in which memory plays a meaningful role.

 

We are interested in stories that explore how remembering, preserving, transforming, or passing on knowledge can contribute to more sustainable, humane, and inclusive ways of shaping the built environment.

 

We particularly welcome contributions with a tangible (built) outcome, but that in the presentation go beyond the finished project and reveal the process behind it: the memories, conversations, tensions, discoveries, skills, relationships, and unexpected encounters that shaped the outcome.

 

We are also curious about what happens afterwards. How do these interventions continue to live on? What memories, skills, relationships, or responsibilities do they leave behind? And how might they influence future generations, communities, materials, places and other-than-human life?

 

Possible conversation themes

These themes are intended as invitations rather than categories. Contributions may address one or several of them, or approach the idea of memory from a completely different angle.

 

Conversation Theme 1. Material Memories 

Memory of building · Memory in materials · Craftsmanship · Repair · Maintenance

 

What can we learn from the building practices of the past, and how can this knowledge inspire more sustainable futures?

What happens when traditional building techniques, local materials or craftsmanship are remembered, revived or reinvented?

How can we design for maintenance, repair and long life — and what kinds of memories do buildings and materials carry as they age?

Can the act of building itself become a form of remembering and passing knowledge on?

 

Conversation Theme 2. Harvesting Memories / Urban Harvesting

Urban harvesting · Reuse · Existing buildings · Material stories

 

We are increasingly familiar with the idea of buildings as material banks and with the need to keep existing materials in circulation for as long as possible.

But materials are more than resources.

A door, a brick, a piece of timber or an entire building can carry traces of the lives that came before. What happens when we reuse not only the material, but also its stories?

How can we respectfully work with the memories attached to existing buildings, places and materials? Can reuse become a way of acknowledging previous lives and creating new ones?

And how might we create future material memories - giving today's materials and buildings the possibility of being valued, reused and remembered tomorrow?

 

Conversation Theme 3. Building Social Connections / Living Social Memories

Building with communities · Participation · Care · Responsibility · Living memories

 

What does it really mean to build with a community rather than for a community?

How can people meaningfully participate in designing and making their own environment? What is fair to ask of them, and what do we, as designers and builders, need to give in return?

Whose knowledge and voice are heard? Who gets to decide? What happens when different memories, needs or visions collide?

And perhaps most importantly: what remains when the architects, students, researchers or builders leave?

We welcome stories about the relationships, skills, confidence, memories and responsibilities that can grow through collective making - and about how these connections can continue to shape a place long after the building process has ended.

 

 

We would love to hear from you

Bring us a project, a practice, a research story, a collaboration, a failure, an experiment, or an unexpected encounter.

Tell us how memory has influenced the way you build, reuse, care, repair, learn, collaborate, or imagine the future.

We are looking for contributions that can inspire a conversation about how remembering can help us build differently - with greater care for people, places, materials, communities, and the non-human world.

What memories are we building today, and what kind of future might they help us create?