Since the beginning of the academic year, the new chair of Urban Architecture offers studios in the Architecture track. The graduation theme of this year is spolia. A term from archaeology, spolia are the left-overs or ‘spoils’ of a building, which find themselves back in a new structure. The students were asked to introduce themselves together with a personal piece of spolia.  The spoils, taken to the studio by students, illustrate that every-day artefacts can change function,  carry emotional narratives or transform in meaning.

Our ambition to represent all the voices within BK faculty; our slogan clearly states "your voice is ours". However, achieving this can be challenging at times. In the digitized world, in which news and opinions travel rapidly and dispersed, the information we are exposed to has become fragmented and fleeting. Thus, among all the online platforms, our hard copy Bnieuws publication might seem outdated. However, if you close your eyes for a sec, instead of hearing your overheated laptop buzz or your phone beep, listen to the crinkly sound and textured feel of freshly printed paper, waiting to be read.

January 2016, the seismic tremor made the porcelain statue tremble on the floor. As I ran down the stairs to help my grandparents, shivers ran down my back. Sadly, the worst was yet to come... Being born in the eastern end of the Himalayan seismic belt, my personal experiences have been the driving force of this research. Traces of the events that I have witnessed in the Indian city Shillong, have created an urgency to meet more rational living standards. In this article, I discuss my graduation project and how it reacts to this urgency by local traces of timber construction.