The Guess the Architecture post for last week was of a rather unique house by Lendager Arkitekter. The Upcycle House, as it’s called, was an experimental project “aimed at exposing potential carbon emission reductions through the use of recycled and upcycled building materials.”
This house was built by the Lendager Group, the same architects who recently curated Wasteland – from waste to architecture, an exhibit at the Danish Architecture Center (DAC) in Copenhagen. The exhibit, like the Upcycle House, is comprised of used building materials. The Lendager Group describes the exhibit as “showcasing the not so distant reality where residues and wastes are no longer seen as waste, but as the primary building materials in the development of our cities, homes and communities.”
The Lendager Group takes this stance in response to the fact that “right now, the built environment accounts for a large share of the global CO2 emissions and resource and energy consumption.” They see this as a problem that is going to grow exponentially since (using their statistics) the global population is currently growing by:
· Five school classes per minute,
· One packed metro train every two minutes, or
· An entire village with 10,000 inhabitants per hour
The exhibit itself is more than the pile of carefully arranged rubble that it appears to be, according to ArchDaily. The exhibit also contains a laundry list of information regarding the planet and the waste that we, as humans, produce. Wasteland is also a tactile experience, allowing you to move through the exhibit more freely, able to appreciate the components with all of your senses.
There are four main themes to Wasteland: cement, plastic, metal, glass, wood, and brick. Paired with each of these categories is a building project—one of which is the Upcycle House that started this post. Regardless of what you think of the style of this architecture—I know, I know, it’s modern—it does make you think about the waste produced in the building process, which is something engineers and consumers alike can appreciate.
For an old house kind of person, I’m surprisingly fond of the corkboard floor; perhaps one will show up in my home someday (albeit in a very, very tiny room). Feel free to donate a cork or two.
Image Credit: ArchDaily—I suggest taking a look at the full gallery!
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