The Postcode Lottery Foundation enables a new project on reuse, architecture, and intergenerational collaboration

The project Achitecture of Reuse now launches, bringing together young people, seniors, and architects to explore how the reuse of buildings and materials can become a natural part of tomorrow’s urban aesthetics. The project has been awarded funding of 2.1 million SEK from Svenska Postkodlotteriets Stiftelse.

“This project is important because our cities need new ways of understanding and valuing reuse if we are to meet the climate challenge. By bringing together young people, older generations, and experts, entirely new perspectives emerge – perspectives that can transform how we build and how we value our urban spaces. We are therefore proud to support this work together with Färgfabriken.”

– Andreas Eriksson, Secretary General, Swedish Postcode Lottery Foundation

“At a time when the transformation of our cities is crucial, yet the space for long-term and exploratory work is often limited, the support from the Swedish Postcode Lottery Foundation is immensely important. It enables us to work in depth and across generations with the question of reuse as both a practical and an aesthetic force in urban development. By bringing together young people, older generations, and architects, we can jointly explore new ways of valuing what already exists and shaping the urban spaces of the future.”

– Anna-Karin Wulgué, Director and Artistic Director, Färgfabriken

About the project
Architecture of Reuse encourages us to challenge established perceptions of what urban spaces look like and how they can evolve. To enable sustainable cities, we need to formulate new aesthetic expectations that both allow and support the transition towards circular construction and material reuse. Through the project, Färgfabriken develops new architecture education methods that promote co-creation and collective idea development with participants across different ages and contexts. Using artistic and pedagogical architectural approaches, the project explores how new aesthetic ideals can be formed to support a more circular built environment.

The project engages intergenerational audiences and creates space for critical reflection, artistic inspiration, and concrete action.

Through architecture education methods and collaborative idea development, participants of different ages and backgrounds are engaged. The project is based at Färgfabriken in Lövholmen, Stockholm, an area currently undergoing transformation from an industrial district into a residential neighborhood, and is developed and communicated through workshops, collaborations with architects, an exhibition, a public workshop space, a festival, and a national dissemination program.

The project addresses young and older citizens, architects, designers and artists, schools and educators, policymakers and stakeholders in urban development, researchers and cultural institutions, as well as a broader public.

Why Architecture of Reuse?
The construction and real estate sector accounts for a significant share of society’s climate impact. At the same time, urban development is still shaped by aesthetic ideals that presuppose continuous new production. If we are to succeed in reducing emissions and resource consumption, technical solutions alone are not enough – we must also change our perceptions of what is beautiful, valuable, and desirable in the built environment. Architecture of Reuse starts from what already exists: the chipped, the altered, the reused, and the already-used. The project aims to contribute to new narratives about urban space, where the expressions of circularity, care, and long-term thinking are also given their own aesthetic relevance.

Reuse Studio
The project is divided into four phases, in which different target groups are engaged through workshops, conferences, and exhibitions. In the third, more in-depth phase, three architectural studios are invited to develop architectural reuse models and design proposals that explore how reuse can be practiced, communicated, and experienced.

The results of the artistic and art educational work will be presented through exhibitions and other public events in connection with the Architecture Triennial 2027.

Read more on our website.

About the Swedish Postcode Lottery Foundation
The Swedish Postcode Lottery Foundation distributes time-limited grants to projects that promote positive social development and seek long-term solutions to local and global challenges. Today, the Foundation is one of around sixty non-profit organisations benefiting from the Postcode Lottery’s billion-kronor surplus. Since 2007, more than SEK 2.4 billion from the Postcode Lottery has been distributed via the Foundation to over 1,300 projects in Sweden and internationally.

About Färgfabriken
Färgfabriken is a foundation and an exhibition space for contemporary art and architecture. We produce and showcase exhibitions in a former factory building in the old industrial area of Lövholmen, where we have operated since 1995. Färgfabriken is also a space for talks, workshops and other cultural activities. By working experimentally and across borders, bringing together different experiences and skills, Färgfabriken creates the conditions for new ideas, knowledge and artistic creations.