Circular Design Symposium: ‘What Goes Around Comes Around’

Conference "Building with Time"

Contemporary architecture increasingly operates under conditions shaped by investment-driven development and rapidly changing lifestyles. In this context, the capacity to transform the urbanised environment becomes critically important. Yet transformation itself can take many different forms - from careful maintenance and adaptive reuse to partial modifications or complete reconstruction.

The conference, taking place at the National Gallery of Art, will invite urbanists, architects, researchers and cultural practitioners to consider architecture as a practice of time, in which inherited conditions, present concerns and future-oriented perspectives intersect.

Through lectures, discussions and case studies, the programme will explore practices in which time becomes a fundamental element of design. It will address work with existing structures, regenerative approaches, and efforts to restore the relationship between architecture, territory and society.

Participants include: Saskia van Stein, Paola Viganò, Kristiaan Borret, Nicholas Duxbury Ransome (Lendager), Kateryna Lopatiuk, Alice Babini (Babini Geysen Architects), Fabian Lauener (TEN Studio), Varvara Yagnysheva (Co-HATY) and Jakob Rabe (pihlmann architects).

Detailed Programme

All events within the symposium programme are free of charge, though registration is required for some events.

19 March, Thursday

13:30
Workshop-discussion
"How Continuous Education Can Enable Circular Construction"
Rupert, Mindaugo g. 15, Vilnius

Registration

19:00
Performative walk
"Hello Darkness(es)"
SODAS 2123, Vitebsko g. 23, Vilnius

The walk will be led by interdisciplinary spatial practitioner and researcher Pablo Encinas Alonso.

Registration opening soon

20 March, Friday

Conference "Building with Time"
National Gallery of Art, Konstitucijos pr. 22, Vilnius

9:30
Arrival
10:00
Opening keynote
"Baukultur and the Emerging Culture of a Social and Ecological Transition"
Speaker - Italian architect and urbanist Paola Viganò

11:10
Coffee break

11:30
Session I

"Planning for Long-Term Transformation"
Speakers and discussion participants:
Nicholas Duxbury Ransome - Director at the Copenhagen-based circular architecture company Lendager

Kristiaan Borret - Supervisor of the quality of urban transformation in Amsterdam and Professor of Urban Design at Ghent University; former Chief Architect of the Brussels-Capital Region

Kateryna Lopatiuk - Ukrainian architect and spatial researcher based in Paris

Moderator - Paulius Kliučininkas

13:00
Lunch break

14:30

Session II

"Matters of Time"

Speakers and discussion participants:

Fabian Lauener - Architect at the hybrid architecture practice TEN Studio, based in Zurich and Belgrade

Alice Babini - Architect at Babini Geysen Architects, whose practice focuses on building transformation, circular design and material reuse

Jakob Rabe - Architect at Pihlmann Architects

Varvara Yagnysheva - Researcher and architect at CO-HATY, contributing to housing recovery and reconstruction in Ukraine

Moderator - Martynas Germanavičius

16:30
Coffee break

17:00

Closing keynote

Speaker - Saskia van Stein, Artistic and General Director of the International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam (IABR)

Exhibition "Invisible Labour" 
National Gallery of Art, Konstitucijos pr. 22, Vilnius

18:30

Exhibition opening. The exhibition will run 20 March - 19 April

19:00

Performance by Eglė Šimėnaitė

The performance will take place within the installation space created by participants of the European architecture platform LINA: Lucille Leger, Jacques-Marie Ligot, Diāna Mikāne and Paula Veidenbauma.

21 March, Saturday

14:00

Collective walk "Following the Wolf's Footsteps"
Starting point: Vilkpėdės g. 24, Vilnius (car park)

The walk will be led by interdisciplinary artist Kipras Dubauskas.

Registration opening soon

17:30

Guided tour of the exhibition "Invisible Labour"
National Gallery of Art, Vilnius

The tour will be led by the exhibition's curator Martynas Germanavičius.

19:00

Performative walk
"Hello Darkness(es)"

Starting point: Vitebsko g. 23, Vilnius

The walk will be led by interdisciplinary spatial practitioner and researcher Pablo Encinas Alonso.