Title:
A House Without Weight
Instructor(s):
Ruben Castro
Engagement:
Craftsmanship
Location:
Gent
Language:
English
Semester:
Semester 2, Spring 2026
- View the presentation (pdf)
Description/Inhoud:
In 2020, human-made material outweighed all living biomass on Earth. From just 3 percent of global life’s mass in 1900, anthropogenic matter has surged to 1.1 trillion tons, growing by 30 billion tons each year—more than each person’s weight in new stuff weekly. Concrete, gravel, bricks, asphalt, and metals dominate this legacy. By 2040, our creations may weigh twice all life. Can we imagine an autonomous house built from minimal, renewable, site-crafted resources—offering light, shadow, intimacy, spaciousness, and home—without exhausting Earth? Through high or low-tech ingenuity, we reinvent dwelling, question modernist assumptions, Pushing the final frontier of domestic life.
Line of inquiry/Onderzoekslijn:
Material Reality
Topic, Thematic Focus/Thema:
Location: everywhere and nowhere, specific or ambiguous inner voice as an architect
Process based trajectory with a concrete outcome.
Key Questions or Provocation/ Centrale vragen en provocaties:
• How much does your architecture weigh?
• How do you prototype?
• How do you position?
• How do you dream?
Methodologies or Formats / Methodologie:
You develop your own Methodology and choose your format
Design / Expected Outcome(s) / Ontwerp / Verwachte Resultaten:
A proposal with an argumentative arsenal as research by design. Format to be adjusted to the proposal. The presentation will be accompanied by purely descriptive words, focusing solely on concrete qualities, with no comments, meanings, philosophies, or interpretations. Choose your unknown or favourite format.
Deliverables / In te dienen documenten:
An inviting, rich and precise, straightforward, presentation that immerses the observer to see what you saw.
Image: graphene aerogel