Porcelain in Presence addresses a gap in circular construction research by returning discarded sanitaryware to architecture as a slip-cast surface, by addressing two rarely coupled challenges: material engineering and human perception. The novelty lies in treating material stigma as a design variable alongside technical performance.

Using Slip-casting as the manufacturing process, the methodology combines stage-gated slip development through progressive waste loading, particle-size engineering, rheological optimisation, and material characterisation, with a 3 × 3 factorial tile study and a three-phase perception study evaluating the same tiles pre- and post-disclosure.

The research demonstrates that a robust ceramic body containing 50% recycled sanitaryware can be achieved through engineered particle packing and rheological control. Additionally, reveals that acceptance is driven less by geometry, waste content, or measured surface properties than by disclosure of the material's origin. Whether discarded matter reads as contaminated or authentic is not a property of the material, but of the meanings we project onto it.