(ZOOM) LECTURE
21 April, 2022,  17:30–18:30

At around 74 million tons per year, construction waste is the largest waste stream in Switzerland. How do you turn worthless waste into a valuable re-source? KLUTZ-designer Charly Blödel (Tutor at Willem de Kooning Academie and programme and exhibition producer at Het Nieuwe Instituut, Museum for Architecture, Design & e-Culture in Rotterdam, NL) talks about material culture, construction waste and its potential to return to the public sphere.

SIGN UP for the lecture via Eventbrite.

OPEN CALL
6/7 May, 2022

On 6 and 7 May, 2022, Team KLUTZ will set up the temporary urban furniture cluster KLUTZ in and around the Basel Pavillon at Dreispitz. We invite student volunteers to join the team in the performative build-up in preparation for the opening of the Architekturwoche Basel 2022. The Basel Pavillon is the main location of AWB 2022. Once completed, Klutz will become a meeting point and forum at Dreispitz during the opening on 10 May and the entire programme of AWB 2022. Team KLUTZ is looking forward to seeing you!

SIGN UP for the KLUTZ performative build-up during the (Zoom) Lecture on 21 April
or directly via mail to hello@charlybloedel.com.

How does worthless waste become a valuable resource? KLUTZ-designer Charly Blödel talks about urban material culture, construction waste and its potential to return into public space. At around 74 million tons per year, construction waste is the largest waste stream in Switzerland. As mixed construction waste, concrete, brick, tile and asphalt are not used to construct new buildings, but are used as secondary materials to fill depleted quarries and other landscape and infrastructure work. Thus, a material that was originally mined from the natural landscape as a valuable raw material now flows back into a man-made landscape as a worthless waste material. How can worthless waste become a valuable resource? This is the question posed by KLUTZ.

As a bag-module, KLUTZ will provide the context for panel discussions, interviews and lectures at the Basel Pavillon, the main location of the Architekturewoche Basel 2022.

KLUTZ is an urban furniture made of textile, on show for the first time during Architekturwoche Basel 2022. However KLUTZ only becomes a seat when it is filled with construction waste. As a bag module, KLUTZ is easy to transport, empty and refill. This is how KLUTZ travels through different urban contexts. “What’s in the bag?” is the recurring question. In a variety of spatial configurations and mixtures of filling materials, KLUTZ becomes a performative tool to engage with the changing value of the material that our built surroundings are made of.

KLUTZ is part of the object family Soft Rubble, a series of spatial constructs in which building rubble and textile find spatial expression sometimes as a wall segment, sometimes as urban furniture. In the project Soft Rubble, which Charly Blödel started during her master studies at the Design Academy Eindhoven (2020), she focuses on the social and ecological implications of spatial design and production systems with a special focus on waste and material culture in the context of the climate crisis.

For more information on KLUTZ at Architekturwoche Basel 2022 and the programme from 09–15 May, 2022, please visit architekturwochebasel.ch