Exodus: A Second Hand City

Speculative urban assembly from kampung fragments using WFC

by Niccolò Rimoldi, Studio Dafne Wiegers, Academy of Architecture, Amsterdam University of Arts, 2026

Exodus is a spatial novel set in Jakarta, where kampungs - dense informal settlements home to millions - face demolition and displacement. Often labeled as slums, these environments embody complex spatial, social and economic systems shaped by incremental growth, layered functions and strong community networks. Kampungs occupy approximately 30 percent of Jakarta’s urban area, yet their systematic erasure through eviction has become a recurring outcome of urban reform, displacing entire communities and erasing the spatial conditions that sustain everyday life.

In response, the project introduces the figure of a visionary architect who proposes a co-ownership model: kampung dwellers harvest building fragments from settlements on the verge of disappearance, archive them and reassemble them into a new city. These fragments - walls, rooms, thresholds, prayer spaces - are not neutral pieces of architecture but carriers of spatial, social and cultural value, displaced alongside their inhabitants. Rather than a fixed masterplan, the project operates as a dynamic aggregation at the scale of a town, an evolving assemblage capable of growth, reduction and reconfiguration over time.

The aggregation is governed by Wave Function Collapse and Model Synthesis, reinterpreted as generative urban tools. Kampung fragments become discrete modules placed in a 3D grid of slots, where adjacency rules determine how they connect - openings, edges and spatial conditions guide the way fragments align and share surfaces. The result is a perpetually growing second hand city, assembled from the memory of what was lost. Authorship is redistributed: the architect defines the system, but the city is constructed collectively. Depositing a fragment grants the right to use the city as a whole.

The co-ownership model operates in four stages. The architect initiates the framework, defining the rules and spatial logic. Kampung dwellers then harvest fragments - carefully selecting and cutting out building partitions in a manner comparable to Gordon Matta-Clark’s interventions. Each fragment is shaped to allow connections with others, preserving edges, surfaces and openings so that new adjacencies can form. The collected elements enter a shared archive, where they are catalogued and made available for recombination through the WFC algorithm. Finally, the second hand city emerges through perpetual assembling - an ongoing process where each new contribution expands the collective structure.

The architectural design draws from a direct experience of Indonesian culture, where everyday life is deeply intertwined with collective practices and religion is embedded within the urban fabric rather than isolated from it. Sacred and mundane functions are intentionally brought together - spaces of worship, habitation, exchange and informal practices intersect and coexist. The spatial organization can be understood as a labyrinthic enfilade: a three-dimensional reinterpretation of the traditional sequence of rooms, extended into an open-ended field where circulation becomes the primary structuring element and programs proliferate in multiple directions without hierarchy or fixed endpoint.

The methodology is transferable to other cities facing eviction and climate catastrophes: Mexico City, Bangkok, Manila, Ho Chi Minh City, Lagos, Dhaka, Shanghai, Tehran, New Orleans and Abidjan. Depositing a fragment grants the right to use the city - a collective assembly driven by necessity and memory.