ANTI-RUIN
« Home Page
« Home Page
I / Overview
ANTI RUIN is an open ended aggregatable structure by OZRUH that transforms stone dust and demolition residues into new spatial systems through large scale 3D printing. Realized through a collaboration with Digital Building Technologies at ETH Zurich, which leads the material research and fabrication, the project first debuted as Phase 1 at the 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale. Phase 2 will premiere in September 2025 at the Barbican Centre during the World Design Congress. Reimagining architecture as something that grows, fragments, and recombines rather than decays, ANTI RUIN proposes a regenerative material economy and a philosophy of building that becomes stronger through adaptation to time and entropy.
ANTI-RUIN Phase 1 at the 19th Venice Biennale of Architecture.
Photography: Lloyd Lee
II / Departure Point
ANTI-RUIN reverses architecture: rather than wholes breaking into fragments, it begins with fragments that grow into new forms. Using 3D-printed dust instead of cut stone, each block can serve as furniture, wall, or structure. Architecture becomes adaptable and open ended, turning ruins and residues into beginnings.
Towards an incremental architecture that offers
novel optionality for future reconfigurations.
Image: OZRUH
Conventional buildings are fixed wholes that move toward completion and eventual ruin. ANTI-RUIN reverses this by starting with complete fragments that can grow incrementally, from voxels to pieces, furniture, walls, and larger structures. Each stage stands on its own yet remains open to reconfiguration. Rather than a fragile whole that collapses, ANTI-RUIN works as an aggregation system where disorder generates new possibilities for architecture to evolve.
Bottom-up, divergent evolutionary tree: from voxel to assembly.
Image: OZRUH
Dust, the residue of architecture from brick, concrete, demolition waste and stone cutting, is mostly discarded. In the case of marble, nearly as much is lost as kept. ANTI-RUIN reclaims this dust through large scale 3D printing, in collaboration with Lasa Marmo quarry in South Tirol.
Lasa Marmo Quarry, South Tirol, Italy
Images: Lloyd Lee
Film Stills: Troy Edige
III / Material Innovation
The material innovation of ANTI-RUIN redefines how stone can be shaped and assembled. Through additive processes, dust is turned into lightweight shells that behave structurally like solid blocks while using far less material. Their form can be tuned to shift balance and create independence between clusters, while precision enables drystone assembly in which geometry alone ensures stability. Together these qualities open a path toward structures that are efficient, adaptable, and rapidly built.
Stone dust is resurrected into future building blocks of adaptable architecture.
Photography: Pietro Odaglia
The material basis of ANTI-RUIN is geopolymer binder jetting, developed by Dr. Pietro Odaglia at Digital Building Technologies, ETH Zurich. In this additive process, a liquid binder is deposited onto layers of stone or demolition dust, bonding particles into solid forms without the need for formwork. Using geopolymers reduces carbon emissions compared to cement while ensuring durability and compatibility with mineral residues. This method enables efficient production of complex, load bearing geometries that are both sustainable and architecturally expressive.
Geopolymer binder jetting bonds stone dust into durable, low carbon building blocks without formwork.
Photography: Lloyd Lee
Binder jetting allows us to create stones as shells rather than solid blocks. With thicknesses of only 6 to 8 centimetres, these elements perform structurally in ways comparable to unreinforced concrete while using far less material. Their hollowing makes it possible to shift the centre of gravity, enabling controlled asymmetries and independent behaviour within the assembly. This capacity to shape balance and imbalance strategically is central to ANTI-RUIN’s open ended structural logic.
Structural building blocks with 6-8 cm thickness
Photography: Lloyd Lee
Drystone precision enables rapid assembly, where blocks interlock without mortar.
Photography: Lloyd Lee
IV / Design Evolution
The design evolution of ANTI-RUIN pursues an open ended and incremental approach to fluid continuity. Each part is defined by purpose yet remains open to new roles, allowing assemblies to grow, separate, and recombine into larger configurations. This principle extends to the greater vision of ANTI-RUIN, where architecture gains resilience not through permanence but through adaptability, unfolding as a system that strengthens by recomposition over time.
Early digital sketches of an open ended and incremental approach to fluid continuity that defines the greater vision of ANTI-RUIN.
ANTI-RUIN builds on OZRUH’s earlier research project PRIMITIVES [2], which investigated how load bearing assemblies could be created through binder jetting technology. Using sand based 3D printing, the project tested structural possibilities beyond the purely experimental, including post tensioned, tree like cantilevering forms. These explorations established the groundwork for ANTI-RUIN, where the focus shifted from isolated prototypes to an open ended architectural system that grows through aggregation, recomposition, and material regeneration.
PRIMITIVES [2] explored sand printed load bearing assemblies at various scales as a precursor to Anti Ruin.
Photography: Lloyd Lee (left) + Sophie Pervical (right)
The early prototypes of ANTI-RUIN were developed in collaboration with 3DMZ in the Netherlands as a way to test both structural concepts and the resolution of surface textures. These included a 1:1 texture resolution study and a series of 1:5 structural models, versions 1 and 2, which explored how the blocks could carry load and interlock at scale. This phase of research laid the groundwork for the next stage with ETH Zurich, where the focus expanded from testing to full scale fabrication.
ANTI-RUIN 1:1 Texture Test Model
Photography: Lloyd Lee
ANTI-RUIN 1:5 Structural Model V1
Photography: Lloyd Lee
ANTI-RUIN 1:5 Structural Model V2
Photography: Lloyd Lee
Phase 1Cluster A + Cluster B
12 Pieces
1.8 x 3.0 x 2.6 m
Debuted at the 19th Venice Biennale of Architecture 2025
ANTI-RUIN Phase 1
Phase 2Cluster C
5 Pieces
0.4 x 0.6 x 3.0 m
Debuted at the World Design Congress 2025 at the Barbican Centre
ANTI-RUIN Phase 2
Phase 3 = 1 + 2 (rotated)Cluster A+B+C
17 Pieces
1.8 x 3.4 x 3.0 m
Location + Date TBC
ANTI-RUIN Phase 3
Exhibitions
Design for Planet Festival
Prototypes
6 Nov 2024 / Manchester
Organised by Design Council
19th Venice Biennale of ArchitecturePhase 1 + Documentary Film
08 May - 23 Nov 2025 / Venice
Main exhibition curated by Carlo Ratti (Film)
Turkish Pavilion curated by Ceren Erdem + Bilge Kafka (Phase 1)
The Royal Academy of Arts
Prototypes
17 June - 17 Aug 2025 / LondonSummer Exhibition curated by Farshid Moussavi OBE
Architecture selection by 6A Architects.
Barbican Centre
Phase 2 + Film8-9 September 2025 / London
World Design Congress hosted by Design Council
Phase 2Marmomac
23-26 Aug 2025 / Verona
Phase 3
TBC
IV / Design Novelties
ANTI-RUIN introduces a set of features that define its architectural novelty. Its surfaces produce shifting silhouettes, where texture and form are inseparable and perception changes with every movement around the assembly. The blocks carry an earthy irregularity that feels at once ancient and futuristic, evoking both geological formation and advanced fabrication. Its organisation is defined by independent structural clusters, where parts support, detach, or recombine without reliance on a fixed whole. Together, these qualities establish ANTI-RUIN as a system that evolves through ambiguity, material depth, and structural autonomy.
Independent Structural Clusters
ANTI-RUIN is conceived not as a singular structure but as an assembly of independent clusters. Even in its gate like formation, structural roles are distributed asymmetrically: the spanning slab is carried by one column, while the other stands detached. This separation avoids interdependence, allowing each cluster to exist in its own right. Localised change or failure therefore does not compromise the whole, reinforcing the project’s principle of strength through recomposition rather than continuity.
Image Credits: OZRUH (Photography by Lloyd Lee)
Future Craft with Ancient Materials
The surfaces carry an earthy irregularity, where fine lines and fluid textures are inseparable from the form itself. Each piece feels both ancient and newly made, its contours shifting between softness and precision. The blocks have an individuality that resembles the assembly a living quality, as if shaped by natural forces as much as by craft.
Shifting textures create new silhouettes.
Photography: Lloyd Lee
Shifting Silhouettes
Within ANTI-RUIN, the perception of form is never fixed. The layered geometries produced through 3D printing generate surfaces that register depth in unexpected ways, so that turning around the structure does not simply reveal another side, but an altered reading of its assembly. Texture, shadow, and geometry are inseparable here, creating a shifting spatial identity unique to the system of recomposable parts.
Shifting textures create new silhouettes.
Photography: Lloyd Lee
VI / Partnership + Collaboration
Design + Project LeadershipOZRUH: Levent Ozruh (Director)
Material Research + FabricationDigital Building Technologies, ETH Zurich:
Dr. Pietro Odaglia (Research Lead)
Prof. Benjamin Dillenburger (Department Chair)
Christian Peterhans (Research Assistant)
Prototype Models3DMZ
David Joreen
Structural Engineering (Assembly)formDP
Danae Polyviou (Director)
Structural Engineering
(Steel Platform)BKSD
Bora Kacar (Director)
Fabrication (Steel Platform)Sponsored by Fibrabeton
Beni Kohen (Director)
DirectorTroy Edige + Beyza Mese
CinematographyTroy Edige
EditingBeyza Mese
Graphic DesignUtkan Dora Oncul
ProductionOZRUH
Film LocationsLaso Marmo Quarry
ETH Zurich
Arsenale, La Biennale
PhotographyLloyd Lee
Naomi Saka
Turkish Pavilion of the 19th Venice BiennaleCurated by Ceren Erdem + Bilge Kafka
Organised by IKSV
2025
19th Venice Biennale “Artificial” ExhibitionCurated by Carlo Ratti
Organised by La Biennale di Venezia
2025
Summer Exhibition at Royal AcademyCoordinated by Farshid Moussavi OBE
Architecture selection curated by 6A Architects
2025
World Design Congress at the Barbican CentreOrganised by World Design Organisation
Hosted by Design Council
2025
Fabrication SupportFibrabeton
Phase 1 Metal stage platform production
Engineering SupportBKSD
Metal stage platform engineering
formDP
Structural engineering (assembly)
Project Promotion + PlatformDesign Council
For supporting and promoting the ANTI-RUIN project and providing the platform to present it at the World Design Congress, Barbican Centre.
Rioco Green
For facilitating connections that helped bring the project to its presentation at the World Design Congress.