INDESEM.25

01-06 june 2025
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OBSOLETE
Around the world, countless buildings stand vacant—abandoned, underutilized, or deemed OBSOLETE—wasting resources and contributing to urban decay. Demolishing and rebuilding these structures comes at a massive environmental cost, generating significant waste and carbon emissions. This year’s theme sheds light on the scale of this problem and invites us to see these spaces as opportunities for transformation and innovation.
This year's theme of INDESEM.25 is about obsolescence; the process where buildings, spaces, and ideas are abandoned, forgotten, or deemed outdated. In today’s world, when something is no longer considered useful, the response is almost always demolition. But why? Why do we accept destruction as the default solution?
We see this happening everywhere—in architecture, product design and in urban planning. Buildings that no longer serve their original purpose are too often seen as useless, rather than as opportunities for transformation. Only 1% of European buildings are renovated each year with 450-500 million tonnes of construction and demolition waste. But demolition is more than just wasteful, it is also a loss of culture and history. Every demolished building erases a part of the city’s identity, removing traces of the past that could inspire the future. Instead of investing in transformation, we destroy what already exists, increasing environmental impact and disregarding the stories embedded in our built environment.
INDESEM.25 takes a critical standpoint. Nothing is truly obsolete, everything has potential. Obsolescence doesn’t mean the end but it is an opportunity for reinvention, for pushing boundaries, and for designing with radical creativity. At INDESEM.25, we invite you to question, explore, and design a new way forward. Will you join us?

HOW TO APPLY
1. What are your thoughts? Write a 200 - 400 word motivation letter on the theme and why you want to participate in INDESEM.25. You can be textual and visual. 
2. Your CV. 
3. Fill in the online application form here.

for questions: info@indesem.nl