ADFF Screening: Søren Pihlmann: Make Materials Matter

Søren Pihlmann: Make Materials Matter

2025 / 54 min / Denmark

Director: Marc-Christoph Wagner,  Simon Weyhe

The global construction industry uses far too many resources and emits too much CO2. Far too often, buildings are demolished and materials thrown away to build new houses. Not only is this approach unsustainable from a sustainability perspective; it also overlooks the potential, not to mention the poetry, that is present in what exists.In recent years, this discussion about how we live, build and design our physical surroundings has gained a distinct Danish voice that is gaining global attention. Through several projects, architect Søren Pihlmann has demonstrated how houses can be transformed by reusing their inherent materials. In 2025, Søren Pihlmann curated the Danish Pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale – a building that needed both climate protection and an overall upgrade. The renovation itself thus became an experimental exhibition that showed how the materials themselves helped to create the pavilion’s future.