Water as Catalyst – Passive Cooling Paradigm

Workshop Description

This workshop explores the role of water and clay as active agents in low-tech environmental design. Through a combination of hands-on making and theoretical grounding, participants will investigate how natural processes such as evaporation and heat exchange can be harnessed to create a passive cooling wall, harnessing centuries-old processes and knowldege from the Levant region. The Passive Cooling wall is a modular structure where minimal water flow generates cooling air currents through micro-pressure variations and material porosity. The workshop unfolds in three consecutive parts: Material Exploration, Passive Cooling Practices, and From Tile to System. The first two sessions are scheduled, while the third will evolve collaboratively with participants after the firing of the clay components.

PART 1: Material Exploration

Time: 09:30–12:30
Facilitators: LowTech TMS Team × Socrates Petrides
Location: TMS Wood & Metal Workshop

Ceramist Socrates Petrides introduces participants to the process of clay making from scratch, combining practical demonstration with material reflection. Using soil collected from Paliomylos mountain slopes, he will demonstrate the transformation of raw earth into workable clay through crushing, refining, and recombining with water.

The session highlights clay’s elemental nature as an earth compound that carries and withholds water and nutrients, establishing a dialogue between material, ecology, and human ingenuity.

Participants will directly engage in these material transformations, preparing the clay that will later serve as the base for the wall components.

PART 2: Passive Cooling Practices

Time: 15:00–19:30
Facilitators: LowTech TMS Team × [Invited Architect – TBA]
Location: TMS Wood & Metal Workshop

This session bridges traditional wisdom and contemporary low-tech design. It introduces the theories and precedents of passive cooling systems — from vernacular evaporative structures to modern ecological design strategies — and focuses on material behavior as a key environmental mediator.

Participants will be guided through the handcrafting of clay tiles and modular elements, experimenting with shapes, textures, and perforations that can enhance airflow and water retention. The goal is to produce a collaborative, community-built inventory of pattern-forming tiles, exploring different configurations and surface geometries that could contribute to cooling effects. These first experimental clay tiles will be fired in the following weeks to be later assembled on the LowTech grid wall, conceived as a prototype surface for testing evaporation-based cooling through evaporation and micro-pressure differentials.

PART 3: From Tile to System 

Facilitators: LowTech TMS Team × Participants 
Timing: To be announced (after firing of tiles) 

In the final stage, participants will assemble the wall using the fired clay tiles produced in Part 2. This collective construction will test how diverse tile geometries and porous configurations interact to form an integrated passive cooling system. 

Beyond the physical assembly, this stage invites reflection on systemic design principles: how modular, low-tech components can scale up into sustainable architectural solutions. The process will encourage participants to think through the wall not only as a surface but as an adaptive, living interface between material, water, and air. 

About the workshop instructors

LowTech TMS Team

The LowTech TMS Team — Stratis Pantelides, Pantelis Panteli, Stella Taousiani, Myrto Aristidou, and Nektarios Gregoriou — is the Thinker Maker Space core team, dedicated in this format to exploring themes of sustainability, material ecologies, and social design. Their work bridges craft, art, technology, and environmental awareness through hands-on experimentation and collective making.

Website: https://makerspace.cyens.org.cy/
Social media: @cyens.thinkermakerspace

Socrates Petrides

Socrates Petrides is a ceramist who has worked with clay since 2018. He runs tokati, a studio dedicated to exploring the possibilities of the potter’s wheel, moving between functional and decorative wheel-thrown forms. His recent work explores the possibilities of wild clay sourced from the Cypriot landscape.

Website: https://tokati.studio/