IABR strives for an agenda-setting and stimulating position in the national and international architecture debate. Since the first edition in 2003, the IABR has therefore focused on the value of design research. The pursuit of a healthy and fair ecosystem for the IABR is always central. The IABR is also critical of the footprint of its own activities. In order to gain insight into this, a CO2 footprint measurement is carried out at each edition by New Economy. The aim is to improve our performance at a subsequent edition and to reduce, avoid or store CO2 when designing it.
What is the current footprint that we make and what can we learn from it to reduce or prevent that impact at the next event or exhibition that we make? How do we encourage our visitors to be climate positive when they accompany us and what knowledge can they take home with them during their visit to apply in their own practice and inspire others to make a valuable contribution? The General and Artistic Director and the Curatorial Team for Nature of Hope invited D_P_S, a studio based in Berlin founded by Diogo Passarinho in 2015, to work as the exhibition's spatial and material consultants. The main goal of all parties was to not rely on building or shipping vast amounts of material but rather to employ a strategy of labor reduction and possibilities of material after-life.
With the support of the IABR production team, D_P_S developed an inventory of what is already available at the Nieuwe Instituut—so-called ‘leftover’ materials, equipment, and technical in-house skills. Not only base materials but also display modules and even large sections of the existing scenography accumulated from previous shows and found within the building are used in Nature of Hope. The studio also opted not to make more cuts to the material plates, wood profiles and plinths, so they can also be used in the show immediately after. Through non(conventional) design strategies, this approach comes close to a zero carbon footprint.
Time (or the lack of it) is the general spatial and material concept; the exhibition is an ephemeral moment, a glimpse "in between shows", at the moment when resources are becoming more and more scarce. D_P_S and Nature of Hope try to "borrow without damaging", critically and generatively responding to the nature of designing for the Biennale format.
For the installations and exhibits, the shipping of material has been kept to a minimum, and one of the main collaborators for the prints is Groenprint, a Rotterdam company that has achieved CO2-neutral printing. Throughout the curatorial process, the IABR teams have guided the participants toward the use or adaptation of existing work—when that is not possible, installations are comprised of materials that will either be appropriated by the visitors or used further in support of the projects, in workshops, or in future exhibitions.
