UPCYCLING REDEFINED 2023…” Our Built Environment”

Upcycling Redefined 2023, will focus on the impact of the human-made environment, highlighting the connection between physical spaces and their social consequences on the climate, inspire creative sustainable innovation and circular built environment, design for longevity, flexibility, assembly and disassembly, adaptability, reuse, recoverability, and alchemic green spaces and designs.

Who

Architects, artists, Engineers, Interior designers, Quantity and estate surveyors, Industrial material producers, and other personnel working in the infrastructure industry, as well as environmentalists, will be targeted. It is intended to coax professionals on the importance of a circular sustainable environment, green spaces, and its economic impact.

Why

The World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) has given the blueprint which provides an exhaustive list of principles for a sustainable built environment. it expresses thus:

A sustainable built environment is circular, designed for longevity, flexibility, adaptability, assembly, disassembly, reuse, and recoverability, and considers future climate risks. It uses low-carbon, low-impact, non-toxic materials, and it recovers used resources (materials and products on-site or from other sites). It is powered by renewable energy, ensures sustainable water consumption, and enhances the well-being and safety of people. Green spaces, natural biodiversity and nature-based solutions increase resilience, well-being and social connectivity. It prioritizes sustainable and shared mobility.

The built environment highlights the connection between physical spaces and social consequences. It is the blueprint for the construction of any structure and its potential effects on the surrounding environment. Buildings contribute to over 40% of global energy-related greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, with around 28% ascribed to building operations and 11% attributed to building materials, and use more than half of all global raw material consumption. Resulting to a negative impact and its active contribution to climate change which breeds its further consequences and greater challenges. As a result, buildings are negatively influencing the environment and actively contributing to climate change, which leads to more implications and issues.

There is no better stage for the infrastructure sector to tackle climate change and ensure long-term sustainability than at its blue print, hence the focus on sustainable built environment. Our protracted inaction on climate change has had serious consequences, and we are now in a reactive mode. Let us not be fooled into thinking that things can't get any worse. As we react to the effects that have already occurred, we must become proactive in order to rescue our future, particularly in one of the primary sectors that affects our environment.

How:

Upcycling redefined 2023 will take an open thematic experimental pedagogical approach that has been carefully designed to inspire the participants on circular design thinking, upcycle and recycling sustainable environmental practices, alchemic architecture, literature, research, documentaries, seasoned environmental mediators, and lectures sessions, as well as demonstrative practical sessions with the facilitators.

Participants will have two weeks to implement individual and collaborative projects, junking exercising, and open studio to demonstrate their process to the public, students, and other creatives around the community.

A collaborative project from sponsor partners will also be installed on sponsor's specific spaces for public consumption, Individual Artists Projects realized will be exhibited at the Transcorp Hilton Abuja, A place that brings together government officials, local and international policymakers, media, and the general public which will help to further sensitized and educate people on the importance of upcycling and its economic benefits.

When

Upcycling redefined is a 3 weeks intensive, open thematic practical workshop slated for June, 1-21st, 2023 with a one-week exhibition opening at Transcorp Hilton, Abuja on the 21st June, 2023.