A
Modular Transformation of Reclaimed Timber
Name
Patrycja Malgorzata Superczynska
Education degree
Kandidat
Fagfelt
Architecture
Institute
Architecture and Technology
Program
Computation in Architecture
Year
2025
Patrycja Superczyńska is a multidisciplinary computational artist specialising in visual concepts and digital technologies. With over five years of experience, she creates immersive VR experiences, develops scripts in Unreal Engine, and designs AR scenographies and interactive exhibitions. Her work focuses on blending technology with design to push the boundaries of spatial storytelling.
Modular Transformation of Reclaimed Timber is a material-first, computational approach to adaptive reuse that integrates locally scavenged timber as the primary design input. Through the use of digital documentation and evolutionary optimisation, architectural configurations are generated in direct response to the available stock. The methodology promotes resource-aware, scalable design workflows, aligning spatial outcomes with the realities of material availability and reuse potential.
Architectural Application
Shaping Space from What Remains
Design begins not with imagined form, but with the reality of what is already available. A material-first, circular approach repositions reclaimed timber as both a constraint and a creative catalyst. Spatial possibilities emerge from existing resources, weaving together sustainability, locality, and the hidden value in overlooked materials.
Timber Reuse Framework
At the core of the process is a community-driven platform—a simple digital app that empowers local residents to identify, map, and classify potential material sources in their neighborhoods.
Material Repository
Local Community
Through it, users can highlight buildings of historic, cultural, or reuse potential, distinguishing between heritage-protected sites and reclaimable structures. This bottom-up mapping model democratizes decision-making and connects design to the lived knowledge of place.
Community Input
Site Identification App
Digital Documentation for Circular Intelligence
Reclaimed elements are documented using photogrammetry and 3D scanning techniques, capturing not only geometry but also surface texture, wear, and structural cues. Each component enters a searchable material library enriched with attributes such as size, condition, type, and provenance. Automated clustering systems allow for smart filtering and pairing—laying the groundwork for design informed by real-world stock.
Digital Dissasembly
An evolutionary computation system simulates thousands of possible allocations between material elements and placeholder geometries. By optimising fit, orientation, and availability, the system ensures intelligent use of resources and actively reports shortages—prompting either the search for more material or selective substitution. This method not only reduces waste but grounds form in tangible limits and possibilities.
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Making as Testing: Physical Prototyping and Mosaic Transformation
Material availability initiates physical experiments that test transformation potential. A single reclaimed piece—such as a laminated timber unit made from offcuts—can serve as an anchor for design development. When pieces are unsuitable in full, they are cut, processed, and reassembled into textured mosaics, turning imperfection into aesthetic opportunity and structural logic into layered expression.
Demonstrator
From Inventory to Intervention Digital material logic guides construction through traceable workflows, linking every element—raw or processed—to its spatial role. The final configuration reflects not just formal intent, but also material reality, integrating resource-consciousness and narrative depth into the built result. Each reuse decision adds meaning while minimizing environmental impact.
A Scalable Model for Circular Practice
This is not a one-off experiment, but a transferable methodology. By combining community input, digital workflows, and adaptive reuse, a scalable design system emerges—capable of evolving with different stock profiles and urban contexts. Architecture becomes a responsive process: grounded in what is available, shaped by collective intelligence, and sustained by continuous transformation.
Design Loop Influence
The Royal Danish Academy supports the Sustainable Development Goals
Since 2017 the Royal Danish Academy has worked with the Sustainable Development Goals. This is reflected in our research, our teaching and in our students’ projects. This project relates to the following UN goal(-s)
