The Copenhagen Architecture Biennial 2025 is a defining moment in recent architectural thought, with “slowness” and the reuse of materials at its centre in the backdrop of growing climate issues and fast urbanisation. This article critically analyses the theme “Refuse, Reuse, Reflect” under the Biennial’s main installation series, the “Slow Pavilions.” The pavilions, made from recycled materials and inserted into the city environment, are platforms for reconsidering speed, sustainability, and social equity in the built environment. Through a critical examination of design ideology, global partnerships, and overall urban implications, the article contends that the Biennial envisions a progressive model of circularity, civic engagement, and slow architecture in the Global North and more generally.
Architecture has been both a reflection and a catalyst of societal transformation over time. In an age of ecological disaster, consumerism, and rapid growth, never has it been more important to take a step back and reconsider how cities develop. The Copenhagen Architecture Biennial 2025 offers this reflective moment. Under the slogan “Refuse, Reuse, Reflect,” it reimagines architecture as not just an aesthetic or technological tool but one of ethical and environmental accountancy. The event’s signature installation series, the “Slow Pavilions,” pursues this agenda via a curated group of buildings constructed from recycled materials, prompting citizens and designers equally to reevaluate their connection to time, place, and materiality.
Background and Context
Taking place in a city internationally renowned for its leadership on sustainability issues, the Copenhagen Architecture Biennial tracks closely the wider environmental and urban policies of Denmark. As the UN Environment Program (2022) explains, the construction sector is responsible for almost 40% of all carbon emissions worldwide. As such, efforts like the Biennial are testing grounds for rebooting materiality, labour, and lifecycle practice in architecture. Guided by architect and researcher Mette Ramsgaard Thomsen, the 2025 Biennial answers these challenges not in spectacle but in substance.
The Concept of Slowness in Architecture
The concept of “slowness” in architectural practice defies the norm of fast urban development and just-in-time building. Drawing from the Slow Movement in food and fashion, slow architecture prioritises labour-intensive processes, craftsmanship, and more intensive community involvement (Ramsgaard Thomsen, 2023). The “Slow Pavilions” capture this spirit through their use of recycled materials, local workforce, and narratives.
These pavilions also welcome the public into a more lingering way of experiencing space. Stretched across locations like Refshaleøen and the Copenhagen Harbour, each installation is an immersive, haptic experience that invites lingering, conversation, and contemplation. This focus on temporality finds backing in Lange’s (2022) contention that circular architecture needs to move beyond physical reuse to include cultural and social regeneration.
Design, Materiality, and Collaboration
The Biennial includes work by studios across the globe, such as Berlin’s Material Assemblies and New Delhi’s Anagram Architects. Their work highlights the range of approaches within circular design. Material Assemblies’ “Timber Echo” employs interlocking wood beams from retired ships and barns, eschewing adhesives and allowing for future disassembly. Anagram’s “Common Ground” transforms urban trash into memory walls where residents write about their personal histories, merging matter and memory.
Digital tools also have an important role. Tourists point at QR codes within every material, retrieving in-depth information about where it is from, its reuse procedure, and its intrinsic carbon value. This transparency not only enlightens but also sets the example for future urban databases for waste monitoring and reuse (Kolarevic & Malkawi, 2021).
Community Engagement and Urban Integration
Unlike traditional exhibitions, the Biennial integrates directly into Copenhagen’s public realm. Through partnerships with municipal authorities and demolition contractors, the Biennial turns the city into both source and stage. This urban embeddedness enhances accessibility and encourages spontaneous interaction with architecture.
Additionally, training programs attached to the Biennial involved target schools, universities, and civic groups with a focus on intergenerational education. As stated by Ramsgaard Thomsen (2023), the education of architects needs to shift towards regenerative thinking—an attitude that the described initiatives demonstrate.
Policy Implications and Future Directions
The Biennial’s testing of circularity has significant policy relevance. It promotes more adaptive zoning regulations, incentives for deconstruction rather than demolition, and backing for community-based fabrication facilities. All these are supported by the European Commission’s Circular Economy Action Plan, which urges a transition towards climate-neutral building sectors (European Commission, 2020).
The Copenhagen Biennial also suggests a new paradigm for architectural events. Instead of depending on expensive, short-term constructions, it supports concepts that can be dismantled, redeployed, or even permanently taken over by local communities.
Global Relevance and Critical Perspectives
Although based in Denmark, the message of the Biennial has universal appeal. Global South cities, which are frequently disproportionately impacted by climate, have rich cultures of informal reuse and thrift. Anagram Architects (2024), among other scholars, contend that such traditional practices should be treated equally in world sustainability debates.
Meanwhile, criticism is raised on the viability of such projects in terms of scalability. Will “slow” practices be able to weather the waves of neoliberal urbanism? Are recycled materials possible for mega-developments? These issues imply the necessity for more research and pilot projects.
The Copenhagen Architecture Biennial 2025 relocates slowness and reuse not as an aesthetic or nostalgic move, but as an urgent, pragmatic response to planetary emergency. With its “Slow Pavilions,” the Biennial critiques dominant norms of speed, excess, and spectacle in architectural production. It promotes a new paradigm in which architecture is not only about building, but also about caring for materials, for communities, and the future.
As cities globally are faced with the dual challenges of climate resilience and social justice, Copenhagen Biennial presents an essential roadmap. It invites us to reject what no longer works, to recycle what is still worth it, and to consider deeply what we next build.
References:
Anagram Architects. (2024). Circular Narratives: Designing with Waste in Urban India. Journal of Sustainable Urbanism, 16(2), 45–59.
European Commission. (2020). Circular Economy Action Plan: For a cleaner and more competitive Europe. Retrieved from https://ec.europa.eu/environment/circular-economy/
Kolarevic, B., & Malkawi, A. (Eds.). (2021). Performative Architecture: Beyond Instrumentality. Spon Press.
Lange, B. (2022). Architectures of Reuse: Circular Thinking in the Built Environment. Birkhäuser.
Ramsgaard Thomsen, M. (2023). Material Practice and Sustainable Futures. Routledge.
United Nations Environment Programme. (2022). Building Materials and the Climate: Constructing a New Future. Retrieved from https://www.unep.org/resources/report/building-materials-and-climate
Copenhagen Architecture Biennial. (2025). Official Press Release: Slow Pavilions Launch. Retrieved from https://www.cab2025.dk
Piñeiro, A. (2025, June 13). Copenhagen Architecture Biennial 2025 Reveals “Slow Pavilion” Designs Built from Reused Materials. ArchDaily. https://www.archdaily.com/1031118/copenhagen-architecture-biennial-2025-reveals-slow-pavilion-designs-built-from-reused-materials
