Recycled Materials Can Change the World: An Interview With ​​Zofia Jaworowska, Michał Sikorski, Petro Vladimirov

Recycled Materials Can Change the World: An Interview With Zofia Jaworowska, Michał Sikorski, Petro Vladimirov

hr_20230419_fundacja_brda_1835.jpg, default, Zofia Jaworowska, Petro Vladimirov, Michał Sikorski, photo: Jędrzej Sokołowski/IAM, Recycled Materials Can Change the World: An Interview With Zofia Jaworowska, Michał Sikorski, Petro Vladimirov

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Artists behind the Polish exhibition at the London Design Biennale 2023 talk about the aesthetics of necessity, building materials for war damaged houses and schools, the value of cooperation, and opening – also symbolic – windows.

There are two intersecting themes in your work. One is to send used windows collected in Poland to Ukraine, where they can be used to reconstruct buildings destroyed as a result of war. The other is the current trend to give a second life to construction materials, the idea of ‘reusing and recycling'.

Zofia Jaworowska: We’ve instinctively combined the two, because each of our trio represents a slightly different take on these issues – we complement each other rather well. Petro, an architect, is our link between Poland and Ukraine, a liaison in the increasingly intimate Polish-Ukrainian relationship. He is also involved in the efforts to rebuild war-damaged Ukraine. Michał, also an architect, has long been interested in the idea of ‘reusing and recycling’ from a designer’s point of view. And I’ve always been socially engaged, so I am mostly interested in the potential to help others. The use of recycled materials can be cheaper, has a lower carbon footprint, and minimises the supply chain from those who can deliver materials to people in need. Each of us brings their experience to this exhibition, but also sees it a little differently.

Michał Sikorski: Working on the exhibition was an opportunity for us to reflect on our previous engagements – a moment of reflection, an attempt to think about what is happening with this project and deeper, the issue of reusing materials. It was a natural continuation of a series of conversations, professional interactions, and reflections that each of us had on this subject.

Petro Vladimirov: Our exhibition shows that social, humanitarian engagement can become more than just a relief effort. The latter is of utmost importance, but at the same time we can address a wider issue – as in our case, the process of reusing construction materials, but also the organisation of procedures, collaboration, networking, and project cooperation. Our project can be considered as opening a window to a number of other issues.

Michał: Each of us entered this project with entirely different experiences and views, so the process of its creation was a kind of trial, an experiment. Importantly, the opening of the exhibition will not be the end of this process. We made certain assumptions, created a curatorial narrative, crystallised our vision enough to exhibit it, but it certainly won’t end there. We are a little unsure in which direction it will develop.

Please tell us a little more about the exhibition itself – it is not a traditional display of selected objects, but rather a presentation of your activities and social engagement.

Zofia: Indeed, this is not an exhibition in which we show a finite process, we do not describe a finished event that we can look at from a distance and examine from different perspectives. We show a process that is still entangled in different emotions, tensions, and challenges.

Michał: The exhibition, which focuses both on reusing construction materials and humanitarian aid, is a continuation of the BRDA Foundation’s OKNO [WINDOW] project initiated by Zofia and Petro. It consisted in creating a cooperation network, the result of which was obtaining windows from buildings demolished in Poland and sending them to Ukraine, where they were installed in buildings damaged by war. The great value of this project was to quash a certain feeling of helplessness, launch new design processes, new contacts, cooperation, and communication networks – we’ve invited other architects to cooperate, whom we asked to create projects to reuse the collected windows, to propose ways to use them. In April, before the opening of the exhibition, we held a collection of windows in London, which will also eventually go to Ukraine.

Zofia: During this collection, cultural differences in the form of architectural detail came to light. It turned out that Victorian windows and sash windows, which are very rare both in Poland and in Ukraine, are very popular in the UK. It’s one of the challenges that emerged during the project, and we did not really foresee this. But it is important and interesting in the wider discussion about reusing certain materials.

Could anyone bring a window to the exhibition?

Zofia: Yes. People could also get in touch and we would collect the windows from them. We had access to a warehouse, where we stored the windows, and later it served as a kind of scenography for the exhibition. After the exhibition, the windows will be transported to Poland, where my BRDA foundation will take over and send them to Ukraine with the remaining materials collected here during the second edition of the OKNO project.

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Michał Sikorski, Zofia Jaworowska, Petro Vladimirov, photo: Jędrzej Sokołowski/IAM

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What is the cooperation with Ukrainian recipients like? How did you establish contacts, how do you find where these windows are needed the most?

Petro: In the course of various activities, gathering knowledge, and mapping existing initiatives, we have eventually established a collaboration with District #1. It’s run by people who have no previous experience in neither architecture nor construction. Before the war, they were involved in stage design and organised events aimed at modernising and revitalising Rajtarska Street, one of the most important thoroughfares in Kiev’s city centre. Since April 2022, they have changed their profile to humanitarian aid and charity activities. We contacted them in June last year and since then we have been cooperating on the distribution of windows in Ukraine. Importantly, the situation in Ukraine is very dynamic. When we started working with District #1, their main focus was on removing rubble; today they are constructing new buildings.

Zofia: District #1 is now our permanent partner. Today, we already have about a hundred donors, from whom we collect windows all over Poland. We store them in Warsaw, then they are transported to Kiev, and from there they move again in all directions, where they are needed. So we connect people from Radom to Kherson and give new life to windows. This is the most enjoyable part of our work.

The London Design Biennale takes place at the Somerset House. Was this space a problem for you when designing the exhibition? You’d think one should go in wearing felt slippers.

Michał: Oh no, we certainly don’t wear felt slippers – more like protective shoes straight from the construction site. Indeed, our scenography contrasts with this space. With two rooms at our disposal, we divided the exhibition into two zones. The first is a symbolic representation of a workshop, a storage space. There we explain the process of acquiring, storing and cataloguing windows, and show the routes through which the windows travel on a map. In this room, we will also show the exact windows that we’re going to collect in London. In the second room, we symbolically recreate the homes in which the acquired windows were installed. These are projects of young architectural studios, mainly from Poland, which we invited to collaborate. They proposed various ways of using windows in a situation of crisis. Here, we will also construct a kind of totem in which an emergency plastic window will be installed, in front of the existing historic, decorative window of the Somerset House. This installation will be a scenographic experience, it allows visitors to experience the discomfort associated with a temporary solution applied in a crisis situation.

Petro: We will show a video presenting examples of how the windows are used in Ukraine. Visitors will be able to sit down o a styrodur sofa and flick through the publication accompanying the exhibition. The set design of the exhibition is very simple and economical, our idea was that we could easily disassemble and mount it somewhere else, or use the materials for construction in a different location.

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The curators of the Polish exhibition at the London Design Biennale 2023 during a trial assembly, from the left: Petro Vladimirov, Michał Sikorski, Zofia Jaworowska, photo: IAM

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You talk a lot about cooperation, which is an extremely important part of your activities. What does networking, engaging people, and creating networks look like?

Zofia: Our network of cooperation is presented in the catalogue accompanying the exhibition, which is a kind of dialogue with various studios or organisations and people engaged in similar issues, whether in their architectural practice or social engagement and aid efforts. We have talked to, among others, the organiser of Windows for Beirut, Lara Moutin in Lebanon or architect Barbara Buser from the in situ studio, who sends windows from Switzerland to Ukraine, but understands the idea of reusing materials in a much wider context. The book also features the voice of District #1, our partner in the OKNO project.

Petro: It is interesting that even though the action in Beirut seems to rely on the same thing, it turns out to be different in details. Part of the ‘Windows for Beirut’ campaign was to activate the network of local suppliers, encouraging on-site DIY renovations using local materials and local human resources. OKNO, although seemingly concerned with the same issue, is about something else. We feel that our actions are not isolated, that similar topics are of interest to people around the world, that we fit into some broader model of action that seems particularly important today. But also that it is worth continuing dialogue, learning from each other. That’s what we tried to show in the catalogue.

Zofia: We want to draw attention to the broader context of these activities. Wherever there is a crisis, there is a quick response to that crisis. People seek to deal with the crisis, to act, in different, but often very similar, ways. It turns out that in Beirut, Switzerland, and Poland, people managed to come up with a similar idea that wherever there are explosions, windows become a first necessity so that people can stay in their homes, continue education or access public services.

How is the reconstruction process discussed in Ukraine? What ideas emerge there?

Petro: For obvious reasons, the debate in Ukraine is dynamic – it changes with the situation. But I think that an important part of our activities is to study what has been achieved in design, construction, spatial planning, and legislation over the past 30 years, what has worked and what needs to be changed. We examine the means that we have to reconstruct, not only material means, but also the legislation, processes, planning – whether they work, and if not, how to change them. The war is ongoing, the situation is changing rapidly, but it is essential to look at reconstruction not as a process of restoring what was there before, but as a kind of opportunity for change. Building anew, not simply rebuilding.

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Zofia Jaworowska, photo: Jędrzej Sokołowski/IAM

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You talk about acquiring windows for ruined houses in Ukraine, but also about the idea of ‘reusing’ and recovering building materials, which is very relevant today not only in the context of the war. You put emphasis on these and see them as an important issue for modern construction.

Zofia: The subject of recycling and reusing materials is quite complicated, because it does not just come down to collecting bricks or windows from demolition sites. It requires, for example, legal and technological analysis whether such recycled materials are safe, how an architect can incorporate them into their designs, on what scale, how can they plan to use these materials if they don’t know whether they will be able to recover them from a given building, etc. We are currently thinking about all aspects of this topic, so that reusing material makes sense and doesn’t generate great costs or radically extend the construction time. We must develop procedures for obtaining materials so that the demolition company, investors and future users can accept them. These are global issues. In today’s Poland – where there’s still more construction, than demolitions – this is quite a novel approach.

Michał: We all believe that in the face of such a great challenge as counteracting climate change, we need to re-evaluate our actions, and therefore the way of building. I do not think that we should stop building at all, but we must try to reduce the negative impact of construction on the environment. There are very few ways, apart from reusing existing materials, for the construction industry to lower its current carbon footprint. This goal is common to many environments and, interestingly, like in modernism, inspires some bold, avant-garde actions. It also promotes cooperation. I come from a very traditional architectural environment, which is very introverted and egotistical and where open collaboration is unpopular because of the fear of competition. When I began to engage with the issue of reusing material, I was very surprised that other people who explore this topic are open and willing to cooperate and share knowledge. Here, unlike in the traditional design process, cooperation, and exchange of experience is completely natural.

Petro: In some places around the world, some solutions have already been put in place. For a number of years now, in Belgium or Switzerland, there have been recycled materials depots; more and more often, e.g. in Denmark or Sweden, concrete structures of new buildings are designed to include special features allowing to freely disassemble their various elements, add new ones or transport and use them somewhere else. This is the direction in which construction is heading and this is talked about more and more often, also in the context of reconstruction of buildings destroyed by the war.

Michał: The concept of the exhibition stems from our belief that the idea of secondary use of materials is important and necessary, but also involves a paradigm shift. Applied on a larger scale, it will certainly generate new aesthetics and changes in architecture. It will probably also affect the role played by the architect, who will cease to be a demiurge controlling the whole process, drawing a sketch for a skyscraper on a napkin. The design process will become increasingly complex, less linear. This, of course, will not make the architecture less creative, intelligent or extraordinary, it will simply be different.

Translation from Polish by Culture.pl

Zofia Jaworowska (b. 1991) is an activist and founder of the BRDA Foundation. When the war in Ukraine began, she launched Grupa Zasoby, a grassroots initiative dedicated to finding shelter for thousands of refugees arriving in Poland. For many years, she worked in the film industry and non-profit sector. She currently combines that creative experience and social engagement in projects dedicated to housing and material reuse.

Petro Vladimirov (b. 1993) is an architect and curator with a background in the arts. He gained professional experience in the Henning Larsen architecture office in Denmark before working as a product designer for real estate development. Together with the BRDA Foundation, he co-created the WINDOW project. He initiated and participated in numerous multidisciplinary projects throughout Europe – the most recent one, Ukraine Reconstruction Office, at the Museum of Warsaw.

Michał Sikorski (b. 1983) is an architect and urban planner with a background in campus planning and research. Before founding TŁO, his own practice in Warsaw, for a decade he collaborated with the Belgian architect Xaveer de Geyter on the Paris-Saclay science cluster master plan. Later, he was the architect in charge of the University of Warsaw planning and co- authored a monograph on the topic. He taught architectural and urban design at ETH Zürich and the Warsaw Technical University.

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