Temporary spaces, permanent change: Circular materials and design for disassembly at ArchiBuild Expo

Every day, an exhibition hall somewhere in the world is transformed. Trucks roll in, custom structures rise, signage goes up, and for a few short days, a world of ideas is brought to life. Then, just as quickly, it disappears.

With more than 32,000 exhibitions held globally each year, generating over 300 million visitors and up to 170 tonnes of waste per large event day, the exhibition industry must urgently rethink its relationship with materials. At ArchiBuild Expo, we’re treating that reality not as a limitation, but as a catalyst for innovation.

In this opinion piece, Ash North, Event Director of ArchiBuild Expo, explains why industry events such as ArchiBuild are a sine-qua-non condition for our industry to adapt and evolve in the current climate crisis.

Reframing what a trade show can be

This cycle is the paradox of trade shows: Massive, resource-intensive environments built to last a few days. But in 2025, we’re choosing to embrace the temporary nature of exhibitions as a platform for real change, one where circular design, regenerative thinking and purposeful unbuilding are front and centre.

We’ve started by asking a fundamental question: what would it look like to design an expo for disassembly?

Workshop sketch image

Circularity isn’t a buzzword. It’s a system

Trade shows have traditionally operated on a linear model: Build, use, discard. But that thinking no longer holds. At ArchiBuild Expo 2025, we’re embedding circularity across the entire event - from modular stand construction to material recovery, signage to furniture systems.

That includes our hospitality spaces, where low-carbon concrete seating designed by Curvecrete is being prototyped for a future infrastructure project. It will be showcased onsite, then installed permanently elsewhere. It’s a tangible example of how temporary can also be purposeful, and how good design doesn’t have to end when the show does.

As Daniel Prohasky CEO at Curvecrete, commented, the Central Park initiative by ArchiBuild x Curvecrete has sparked focused energy across the multidisciplinary design team and has actually enabled more innovative low-carbon reduction methods through accelerating our architectural engineering design and approval processes. 

According to him, ArchiBuild is directly enabling the potential of further carbon reduction on an actual infrastructure project.

We’re also having real conversations with our contractor partners like Harry the Hirer, challenging the hire-and-dispose model and encouraging reuse, smarter logistics, and more adaptable, enduring build systems. This isn’t about looking sustainable. It’s about making practical changes to how we operate.

The Workshop concept by Hassell Studio, Studio Round, Ed Linacre and Indetail

The Workshop: One space, many lessons

At the heart of our FutureBuild Neighbourhood sits The Workshop, a 180sqm space developed in collaboration with Hassell Studio, Studio Round, Ed Linacre and Indetail. It’s a flexible venue for talks, roundtables and demos, but it’s also a case study in circular practice.

Built entirely from offcuts, post-use elements and construction waste, using non-virgin materials the Workshop was designed for disassembly from day one. 

As Samantha Peart, Global Head of Sustainability from Hassell put it, how can this be a temporary space for materials that are coming from or going to elsewhere, and still be beautiful, comfortable, and functional?

That’s the mindset we’re taking across the whole show. Because circularity isn’t just a design outcome, it’s a way of working. A way of thinking about embedded value. And a way of respecting the lifecycle of every material we touch.

Enscape

Rethinking the Trade Show as a temporary ecosystem

If we can get this right in a high-pressure, fast-paced environment like a trade show, it proves that the principles of regenerative design and circular construction are viable at scale. 

We’re working closely with the team at Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre to ensure the venue’s energy use, waste systems, and material recovery efforts support the outcomes we’re aiming for onsite.
We’re also reducing printed collateral, digitising communications, and encouraging exhibitors to rethink how and why they build. Temporary doesn't have to mean throwaway. It can mean agile. Smart. Future-focused.

Let’s build smarter and unbuild better

For three days in June, ArchiBuild Expo becomes a real-time testbed for industry. Not a future concept, but a tangible, functioning example of what can be done differently. And when the show ends, we’ll close the loop. The Workshop will be deconstructed, its components returned, reused or repurposed. Nothing will go to waste.

We’re not claiming to have all the answers. But we’re committed to asking better questions. What if reuse was the default? What if events like ours became examples of circular practice, not just exhibitions of product?
Trade shows may be temporary, but the conversations and the actions they spark can be permanent.

Let’s make temporary count.

Want to see the future of building and design in action? Join us at ArchiBuild Expo 2025 to explore the latest innovations, materials, technologies, and ideas shaping a smarter, more sustainable built environment. Register now.

Image: The Workshop / Studio Round