Objective
Architectural historiography has long celebrated what goes up, the creation of buildings, but has largely neglected what goes down: buildings’ decay, demolition, and disposal. Reconstructing Architectural Waste (RAW) remedies this oversight by making architectural waste the focus of historical analysis. Architectural waste here is not only the construction materials left behind when buildings are dismantled, but also a process sustained by archival silences and institutional erasures that remove such debris from the record. RAW thus begins at the end, with dumpsites, salvage yards, incinerators, and landfills. By reversing the direction of inquiry, it centers the infrastructures and uneven economies that survive a building’s supposed end. It draws on discard studies, material histories, and environmental humanities, deploying Charles Mills’ “white ignorance” concept to expose how the architectural canon conceals racialized geographies, toxic residues, and laboring bodies entangled in the ends of buildings’ lives. To do so, RAW applies four perspectives: Shedding traces how buildings are stripped of parts and worth; Drift follows how fragments migrate across scales; Salvage examines economies of reuse and repair; and Accumulation confronts the residues that settle in landscapes and lives when circulation stalls. RAW’s approach is driven by histoire croisée (“crossed histories”), a relational method that shows how building fragments, demolition practices, and historical viewpoints are transformed as they intersect. In tracking how the very categories of “waste” are remade through their crossings, it alone can uncover the connections overlooked by the historiography of modern architecture. The project culminates in a terminal literacy lexicon, an analytical framework that rewrites architectural history through waste. This approach compels the discipline to confront its entanglements with the environment and labor alike, and to imagine more sustainable futures.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
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Keywords
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC)
MAIN PROGRAMME
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Topic(s)
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Funding Scheme
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
HORIZON-ERC - HORIZON ERC Grants
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Call for proposal
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) ERC-2026-STG
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Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.
4051 Basel
Switzerland
The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.