Senegal

At the end of many material life cycles in global landfills, the inability of increasing quantities of material surplus from various sectors to “return to the soil”, has brought into sharp focus the biological incompatibility between today’s overground and underground material systems. Meanwhile, at the beginning of agricultural plant life cycles, crop residues (agricultural by-products left in the field) are estimated at over 5.5 billion tons per year of potentially valuable biomaterial inputs that could support circular material economies for upcycled products, from textiles to packaging, furniture and building materials. More critically, the rapid loss and degradation of ‘living soil’ cultivated by biological communities at the interface of both systems, represents a growing threat to the fundamental mechanism underpinning the circular renewal of sustainable food resources for the planet.

The seminar invites students to explore new paradigms for connecting building materials to regional agricultural, textile and local prevailing material supply chains, in which improving soil nutrition and soil resiliency underpins the design goal of providing cross-sectoral environmental performance. As the second edition of Soil Sisters summer program, the Yale Senegal 2024 seminar invites students to engage in models of material production which are designed both to alleviate pressure on soils by storing materials in the built environment and to anticipate healthy return to soil. The seminar invites students to learn, think and engage in existing and new material practices with their hands. Working directly with local textile producers, textile reuse and recycling enterprises, earth masons and artisans students will be asked to “learn through making”, “design through making together” and “evaluate their designs through public engagement”. Over the course of the summer program, students will travel weekly around the country to engage with a broad range of local actors (material researchers, farmers, textile designers, engineers, architects and craft experts) who work across the earth masonry, natural fiber, textile, salt and plastics industries.

The course will have an ongoing “Soil Stories” assignment where students will research, document and develop material prototypes from weekly workshops. Students will develop material prototypes both individually and as a group. Through the Soil Stories format, students are given the opportunity to de-centre their material prototypes solely as a problem or solution, and instead place them in context of meaningful narratives and complex practices. This could open up new productive criteria for building material development, reestablish ties between material industry actors and address intersectoral knowledge or entrepreneurial gaps.