In this seminar, the students explored all the elements – doors, windows, walls, floors, roofs – different materials – wood, glass, stone, etc. – up to the separate ingredients – sand, cement, clat, PVC, etc. – that made up the architecture department building (KIT). The students researched and presented not only how they were made, technically, and where they were from, but also how they were used and by whom, how they were maintained, and cleaned, and how they felt, smelled, and sounded. In total, 10 different re-orderings of the matter the building was made up of – in time, in use, history, and tactility – were represented in different graphics and through different ways of storytelling. In our past economy of waste, the remedy to reevaluate materials and change the ways we use and dispose of them was to no longer think anonymously about them but to make them come alive by writing their biographies. The agency of storytelling and graphic representation was a significant part of the assignment, and the outcome was published in a book, made by the students as part of the seminar. The course could only be chosen in combination with the related design studio ‘The Superpower of Outdated Infrastructures – Towards a biodiverse social condenser’ and was mandatory for this studio.