This writing focuses on treating urban matter in its entirety, including all its assemblies, not only architectures, but materials, public spaces, infrastructures, landscapes and elements of the built environment as resources capable of being re-discovered and reformed. The objective is not simply creating something new but develop deeply authentic, inclusive and responsive spatial constructs that activate memory, sense of community, presence and belonging.
Studies show that half of the building mass and its environmental footprint is kept within infrastructure and assemblies that are part of urban spaces5. Building on Lund University’s long history of cutting-edge research and commitment to sustainable practices across disciplines, this proposal introduces reform and tactile reuse as leading concepts contributing to the university’s commitment to sustainable development and research through the lens of artistic experimentation. These concepts are rooted not only in ecological frameworks but also ontological and socio-cultural strategies that treat urban matter not only as physical substances but as a framework of meaning, emotion, atmosphere and layers of memory.
Furthermore, by positioning tactile reuse and reform as a holistic and transformative methodology within transitional urban conditions, this research critically engages with latent, overlooked, and in-between spaces, often overseen as no-places, yet with potential to reconnect human and nonhuman actors with everyday urban life and enhance their embodied experience and presence. Therefore, this research intends to provoke that architecture is processual and performative, particularly when situated in critical transitional urban contexts. The notions of reform and tactile reuse here are not just ecological and material, they are ontological as architecture is created through use, presence, reuse, collective engagement and memory. The abovementioned urban conditions are not addressed solely through material reuse or surface intervention, but through a broader framework that treats reform as conceptual and spatial design tool that is applied holistically to urban environments and its elements. Through a design-driven artistic approach, this research explores how these embedded potentials can be activated to shift architectural thinking beyond conventional planning frameworks toward adaptive, mobile, and reform-based design practices. Architecture therefore becomes a design and creative tool of working with the existing, spatially, materially, socially and tectonically.

Reform and tactile reuse here are notions that encompasses a multitude of processes that are an active part of urban spaces. Among others they aim on critically reflecting upon inclusion, collective memory and social repair. Additionally, they refer to a radical approach to reuse and reform existing stock of materials, tectonics and built assemblies and their embodied material memory within the built environment, aiming to explore and enhance their adaptable qualities and their socio-cultural and climate implications. At the same time, reform calls for critical engagement with marginalised architectural and urban artefacts, urban spaces marked by climate, resource and social fragmentation which are often overlooked as latent spaces with lack of architectural and social significance. Spatial margins, transitional urban spaces and in between spaces, whether social or material, have an incredible potential to becoming catalysts for collective memory, social inclusion, experimentation and sustainable urban development. Therefore, this research explores how reform can be used as a design and conceptual tool that will inform new spatial typologies, architectural languages and urban scenarios that are highly responsive, sustainable and socio-culturally significant.
The core premises of this proposal follows a critical investigation on latent urban spaces, transitional urban territories and ephemeral spaces within public and urban domains. While they are distinctive in relation to temporality, scale, culture and context, these spatial constructs often overlap, complement and transform one another. This study will thoroughly explore their conditions, socio-material dynamics, cultural and environmental implications as well as the way they reconfigure and jointly inform their own development.
By positioning these urban conditions as a critical part of the study, this proposal will explore and uncover their potential and role within the broader urban fabric, not as rigid categories, but as flexible and adaptable urban settings. Under the conceptual framing of reforming urban matter, this research will specifically explore and propose well informed architectural and urban interventions that will impact, reframe, reinvigorate, and critically reflect upon cultural and material narratives, conventional construction systems in urban environments, urban activation and perceived collective and material memory.
Existing spatial conditions will be treated not only through strategies defined by new construction, but also through ontological means of gesture, atmosphere, tactile and ritual. Reforming urban matter in this context refers to a multidimensional and cross-disciplinarity layering of various complexities inherent in architectural and urban conditions.
This proposal aims on provoking our perception of architecture and urban design while rising critical questions such as:
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How can architectural design remain relevant, responsive and materially sensitive in urban spaces shaped by climate urgency, social instability and fragmentation?
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Can architectural design reform presence and bodily experiences in public and semi-public spaces in a time of ecological, technological and material transition?
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How can the interdisciplinary nature of architecture and urban design through the concept of reform, address the growing tendency toward disembodied daily interactions, and through ephemeral design, encourage spaces of presence that enhance embodiment, urban engagement, social awareness and interaction?
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How can reform-based design methodology of treating architecture and urban design integrate circular and ecological strategies with cultural repair, material memory and the reinvigoration of urban dynamics?
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Can reform based design methods embed material memory and social history in urban environments?
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How can knowledge, generated by filmmaking as an investigative method of urban environments, be translated into design tools, rooted in concepts of tactile reuse and reform, and applied to create reinvigorated urban scenarios and responsive spatial constructs?
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How can in-between urban spaces, transitional zones and latent urban spaces become contexts for material, social and collective experimentation developed in close dialogue with local communities?
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How can digital fabrication processes influenced by artistic research, lead to tectonic innovation through tactile reuse, reform and adaptation of materials and assemblies in public settings?
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What are the strategies to design architecture that challenges the notion of permanence, that can adapt, shift or be re-assembled without losing connection to place, people, material and memory.

Tactile reuse, presence-based activation, reforming urban matter and responsive spatial constructs move beyond the usual material and ecological treatment of architectures and urban spaces. They introduce an experiential and socio emotional layer rooted in contextual dynamics encouraging us to slow down, be present and enhance our embodied experience. This approach suggests that participation and engagement are essential to completing architecture, positioning architectural design as a material, temporal and contingent act.

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This study will follow a multitude of methodologies, including historical and empirical research, as well as artistic, practice based and action-based methods, framed within a research-led process, detailed later in this section. These methodologies will inform and reflect upon one another and will be based on specific real-life contexts. This process will be complemented by highly reflective and comparative approaches, creating the basis for addressing the research objectives and questions. Through practice-based research and artistic methodologies informed by research-led processes this proposal will adopt a holistic approach to architectural and urban design processes that are rooted in the research objectives and questions of this proposal.
Historical and archival research
Historical and archival investigations of various types of urban spaces and architectures within transitional, latent and in between zones in public domains will establish a deep contextual understanding of their transformation throughout time, forming the base ground for exploring their dynamics, possibilities and futures. This will be closely followed or done in parallel with contextual mapping of areas of interest which currently span from urban situations in cities such as but not limited to: Malmo , Copenhagen, Tirana, Prishtina, Ho Chi Minh city and Istanbul. These locations of interests are based on my personal and professional experience.
Empirical research through artistic-lead methodology
The contextual mapping and investigative research will be conducted through an artistic methodology rooted in my professional background in story telling incorporating filmmaking and visual mapping. Through this methodology various urban scenarios of the cities mentioned above will be investigated, analysed and artistically documented. The artistic documentation will focus on transitional urban spaces, latent public spaces and urban scenarios marked by climate change and social fragmentation. This will generate significant knowledge and data that will be documented, presented and analysed in connection to the research objectives and their artistic ambition. The result of such mappings will be compared to critically reflect on their socio-cultural dynamics, architectural and urban qualities, environmental implications and potential future scenarios. The gathered information will form the foundation for further artistic, empirical, action-based and experimental research supporting the development of real-scale prototypes and interventions. Having the necessary knowledge of contextual dynamics of the selected sites will greatly inform the establishment of design tools that will holistically engage with notions of responsive spatial constructs, the reform of urban matter and tactile reuse.
Ecological and Ontological (material, architectural and tectonic) mapping
Once the contextual layers identified through above-mentioned methodologies are established and well understood, the study will move into an experimental investigation of materials, architectures and tectonics. This involves detecting and analysing the local, vernacular qualities of materials, tectonics, typologies and systems within the selected contexts. This is framed as a material and tectonic mapping of architectural qualities in the selected urban spaces. The mapping will be both scientific and artistic, exploring the tactile and ecological qualities of architectures present in each urban setting.
In this study, material and tectonic research goes beyond the highly significant ecological dimension of reuse, which addresses environmental impact, material circularity and environmental sustainability, by introducing, in parallel the notion of tactile reuse. This additional approach emphasises the embodied, experiential and socio-cultural qualities of existing or reused materials and systems and critically reflects on their impact on design strategies and socio-cultural dynamics of urban fabrics. Following this, the research trajectory will involve strategic decisions regarding which materials and systems to investigate, their contextual relations, adaptable tectonic qualities, socio-spatial implications, emerging architectural typologies and styles as well as space making techniques.
Material experimentation and prototyping (Research through making)
Prototyping, material testing, and artistic experimentation, will be an integral part of this study which will be carried out through an interdisciplinary approach. Architectural, material and tectonic prototyping will be carried through but not limited to digital fabrication methods which are of state-of-the-art quality at Lund University’s laboratories. Informed from my professional and academic background in digital fabrication methods which include 3d printing and various robotic manufacturing I will strive to conduct a highly scientific, artistic and practice-based research that will generate architectural porotypes which are radically contextual, sustainable and are highly flexible and mobile. Digital fabrication research in architecture at Lund University is highly established and is continuously used as means to further deepen knowledge and develop tools, architectures and systems that constantly push industry standards for a more proactive approach to our existing recourses, architectural and urban qualities6. Building on this, my approach will investigate, analyse and propose design tools that embed ecological, ontological and tactile qualities and aim to deepen knowledge on the role of design strategies and architectures within the realm of urban scale. Depending on contextual qualities, research goals and topical presidencies, digital fabrication methods will span from additive manufacturing, robotic milling, large scale multidimensional robotic scanning, sewing and layering. This process will establish the foundation for highly contextual, resilient and responsive proposals, prototypes and interventions that critically engage, reflect and develop knowledge in academia and practice. The outcome will be a critically layered methodological approach that places architecture and urban design as iterative, site responsive, sustainable and socio culturally embedded practice.

The notions of reforming urban matter and tactile reuse of assemblies that form architecture and public spaces emphasises a radical transience and adaptability, rooted in design tools and methodologies developed by a thorough, artistic, scientific and practice-based research. Among others these methodologies aim to transform urban environments and their social dynamics into responsive spatial constructs which are highly reflective, iterative, sustainable and among others enhance human and non-human embodied experiences, presence, memory and material value.
The abovementioned methodological approaches to this proposal will be carried out through a research lead highly qualitative process. The artistic components will be conceived in connection to the research objectives and questions, documented through academic records, critically analysed against the objectives and findings, and concluded via reflective synthesis. Together, this establishes a comprehensive research-led approach to artistic practice and methods that span the full cycle of conception, documentation, analysis and conclusion.
The research unfolds through a structured and iterative trajectory, beginning with two to three primary case studies that act as sites for investigation through film, mapping, and material inquiry. These studies inform the development of design tools, spatial strategies, and prototypes, which are iteratively tested and reflected upon. This gradual and structural approach ensures conceptual depth, methodological clarity and feasibility within the doctoral framework, while also offering strong pedagogical integration. The process and outcomes will directly contribute to research-led design teaching and studio-based education within architecture studios and urban design programs at Lund University.
The expected outputs based on the research plan will be:
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Academically reflective written component which will take the form of a thesis, essays and visual narrative.
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Public engagement via exhibitions/artistic installations of each finding, lectures, participatory and collective actions and international collaborations with universities and practices.
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Experimental narrative-based story telling of each milestone through filmmaking, images and drawings.
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A body of physical work which will take the form of pavilion scale prototypes/interventions, material and tectonic system studies.
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Establishment of design tools that are rooted in the research objectives that will contribute to knowledge within academia and practice about responsive spatial constructs, sustainable architecture, transformation, and urban development through a holistic and tactile reuse and reform-based perspective.
Due to the rapid densification, global housing inefficiencies, environmental crisis and socio-economic imbalances, the built environment, public spaces and architectures within it, are in urgent need of multidimensional and multifaceted re-invigoration. In this context the role of the architect as an interdisciplinary actor becomes fundamental and critical in developing and proposing design tools and practices that are radical in their principal and highly responsive to the existing challenges. This research aims to contribute to that shift by developing design methods rooted in the notions of tactile reuse, reform and artistic experimentation that critically transforms urban situations through ecological and ontological means into responsive spatial constructs that reflect upon democracy, diversity, equality and climate. 

Terminology: Ecological: Architecture’s role in addressing environmental urgency. Ontological: Architecture’s role in shaping lived experience, material memory, and collective meaning. Urban matter: Assemblies of physical substances, architectures, materials memories and social dynamics that shape the build environment and/or an urban space. Tactile reuse: The embodied, experiential and socio-cultural qualities of existing or reused materials, architectures and tectonics. Ephemeral design: Design approach that creates temporary, adaptive, and experimental spatial interventions, testing ideas and spark reflection. Latent urban spaces: Urban voids or overlooked urban spaces that embed potential for new forms of material, social and spatial transformation.

 

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