On November 19, 2025 the Material Library organised the first Material Assembly. Together with a group of students, we followed the material traces of the trees felled on the neighbouring plot of the academy and visited the sawmill of Stadshout in Ouderkerk aan de Amstel.
The Material Library is an initiative that foregrounds the interconnected material processes underlying the life of the Gerrit Rietveld Academie as a place of education, a building with diverse facilities, and a socio-material community. It seeks to bring the academy’s complex material domain into a visible and graspable realm through a digital, visual database, while also creating publics around and with the materials of the academy.
Material Assemblies
The library expands through intensive workshops called Material Assemblies that are held throughout the year. Open for students and staff, these workshops identify opportunistic entry points into the material chains of the academy and explore the links that connect them. The library grows by tracing materials that are consumed, produced, condensed, and transformed within the academy.
For this first Material Assembly, participants had the opportunity to visit the sawmill of Stadshout, where several trees felled from the neighbouring plot of the Gerrit Rietveld Academie were processed into timber. The wood will be dried over the coming months and years, and will eventually make its way back to the academy as source material to be used by the community. After the visit, participants attempted to trace and identify not only the material characteristics of the wood, but also the various stages of its transformation, as well as the secondary materials, tools, people, and places involved in the process. The Material Library is currently under development, and as such, this workshop was part of its formative process.
Stadshout
Stadshout is an Amsterdam-based organization that rescues felled city trees and, through its sawmill and local partners, transforms them into usable wood and products. stadshout.nu
Material Library
The Material Library is initiated by Márk Redele and co-hosted by Rietveld Sandberg Research and Urgent Ecologies.
Material Assemblies
The library expands through intensive workshops called Material Assemblies that are held throughout the year. Open for students and staff, these workshops identify opportunistic entry points into the material chains of the academy and explore the links that connect them. The library grows by tracing materials that are consumed, produced, condensed, and transformed within the academy.
For this first Material Assembly, participants had the opportunity to visit the sawmill of Stadshout, where several trees felled from the neighbouring plot of the Gerrit Rietveld Academie were processed into timber. The wood will be dried over the coming months and years, and will eventually make its way back to the academy as source material to be used by the community. After the visit, participants attempted to trace and identify not only the material characteristics of the wood, but also the various stages of its transformation, as well as the secondary materials, tools, people, and places involved in the process. The Material Library is currently under development, and as such, this workshop was part of its formative process.
Stadshout
Stadshout is an Amsterdam-based organization that rescues felled city trees and, through its sawmill and local partners, transforms them into usable wood and products. stadshout.nu
Material Library
The Material Library is initiated by Márk Redele and co-hosted by Rietveld Sandberg Research and Urgent Ecologies.
research group
Materiality
Materiality
project
How Material Comes to Matter
How Material Comes to Matter