“We have to think of buildings as material depots,” says Thomas Rau, a Dutch architect who has been working to develop a public database of materials in existing buildings and their potential for reuse. [...] “Waste is simply material without an identity,” he says. “If we track the provenance and performance of every element of a building, giving it an identity, we can eliminate waste.” — The Guardian
In an opinion piece, Oliver Wainwright writes on how more architecture firms across Europe are exploring methods on preserving, adapting, and reusing existing buildings instead of demolishing them, which hugely create CO2 emissions. But it'll take more than a few progressive architects and eco-conscious clients to make this practice more common in cities, Wainwright says. “It requires a fundamental shift in our attitude to materials.”
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Thanks for sharing!
Cities around the US have already put in place a bunch of waste reduction or elimination targets that will support this method of thinking...we are already working on a project in response to this. It’s less “What if”, but it’s already happening and a necessary way of thinking going forward.
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