Australian studio reimagines asbestos as a renewed building material at Lisbon Architecture Triennale

Architectural studio Besley and Spresser was certainly one of twenty worldwide groups to exhibit within the Unbiased Initiatives program on the 2025 Lisbon Structure Triennale.

The triennale, operating till 8 December 2025, was curated by Ann-Sofi Rönnskog and John Palmesino, founders of Territorial Company and is centred across the theme, “How Heavy is a Metropolis?” The theme prompts exhibitors to research the planetary impacts of urbanisation throughout environmental, social and political dimensions.

Besley and Spresser was chosen from a pool of 76 candidates to exhibit within the Unbiased Initiatives program.

Their set up, titled 09.ED.15 Redux, explores the environmental legacy of asbestos throughout city and suburban areas, and the potential for it to be reworked right into a protected, useful materials as an alternative of including hundreds of thousands of tonnes to landfill worldwide. The exhibit showcases handled asbestos waste that has been transformed into carbon-negative constructing supplies, corresponding to bricks and a glazed column.

Working with materials scientists Asbeter from Rotterdam and ceramicist Benedetta Pompilli in Amsterdam, the exhibition reimagines the constructing trade’s infamously hazardous substance as a supply of renewal and restore. Architect Peter Besley stated the undertaking started with a easy query: “What if one of many constructing trade’s most hazardous supplies might grow to be certainly one of its most promising?”

“Asbestos embodies the contradictions of loads of industrial materials tradition: comfort vs harm. By reworking it, we’re making an attempt to contribute to the rethinking of the fabric tradition of city-making,” stated Besley.

Architect Jessica Spresser echoed these sentiments, commenting, “We needed to take one thing traditionally feared and reveal its potential for renewal by way of innovation, analysis and design.”

“The set up makes seen the concept that restore may be each a technical and a poetic act,” she stated.

The triennale set up builds on the follow’s earlier investigations into asbestos transformation. An earlier proposal from the agency referred to as Redux was shortlisted for the Australia Pavilion on the 2025 Venice Structure Biennale. The proposed pavilion featured raked panels of former-asbestos mineral render, free-standing columns product of blue former-asbestos mineral glaze and detailed maps of asbestos dump websites and constructing inventory.