BIØN is a network of organisations active in low-impact building techniques. We aim to share knowledge, practices and experiences to contribute to the built environment and our communities. Listen in to our diverse European network when we share our perspectives on building with natural materials, creating circular designs and working closely with the local communities.

At a second level, this social dimension of the working group was reflected on the social dimension the projects brought to the local communities. Here factors such as hospitality, curiosity, helpfulness progressively contributed to overcome feelings of scepticism or even refuse. In those workshops were representatives of the beneficiary community were involved as trainees this dimension was particularly strong.

The history of our cities have been always characterized by phenomenon of transformation. Architecture is a system open to mutations, capable of “recycling” its own purpose, its own shape and its own meaning. “Examples like Spalato, like Teatro di Marcello in Rome and the Il Duomo di Siracusa, to mention three of the clearest examples, are reborn from recycling. It is not treated as restoration: the idea of conservation tends to embalm the image of the architectural or urban space giving value to the immutable. Instead the process of recycling, the change is the value, especially when it is able to generate successes as in the examples mentioned before.1” (M. Ricci 2011).