Authors: Césare Peeren, Jan Jongert, Ed van Hinte

Published by: 010 Publishers, 2013
ISBN 10: 9064505926

Pioneers in designing and building with various dead stock and waste materials, compiled the book Superuse. This book shows examples from their own practice as well from other designers who incorporate trash in their design.

Cable reels, window frames, washing machines, diapers, crates, carpet tiles, double glazing panels or old buses–you could recycle, discard or even burn all of these things. The other option is to put them to good use: ‘superuse.’ This is happening everywhere, albeit on a modest scale. Architects apply these materials in their designs. Superuse is a practical and inspiring book about constructing new buildings with surplus materials. It was initiated by Recyclicity, a Rotterdam foundation dedicated to such possibilities. Copiously illustrated with examples from the Netherlands and elsewhere, Superuse presents ideas for tools and methods for architects and superuse scouts such as the ‘harvest map’ of everything reusable within a given distance of a building site. Superuse renders the superfluous superfluous.

REMATERIAL

From Waste to Architecture

by Alejandro Bahamón, Maria Camila Sanjinés.

Image and text courtesy of the Publisher
Publisher : Norton Architecture
340 pages – 8.4 x 9.7 in
Language: English
ISBN: 978-0-393-73314-3

How someone else’s waste can become the next designer’s building material.

Everyday, millions of tons of garbage are dumped into landfills and consigned to perpetual disuse. But when creativity meets resourcefulness, waste can become the material for building. Never before in history has the impact of man on this planet been so important. The construction industry is one of the most polluting in the world, so contemporary architects can play a fundamental role by using waste, and—what’s more, ingenuity—to convert it into structures that are useful, imaginative, and beautiful. In our society, garbage is considered filthy, and we want only to hide it from sight. Rematerial features projects that rescue discarded materials from paper cups to cargo containers and transform them into imaginative, attractive, efficient buildings and projects that are sustainable, innovative, even daring from a conventional perspective.

Rematerial brings to light a movement of diverse professionals from around the world who address this fundamental theme: the reuse of materials with architectonic purpose. Though the results are as varied as the designers, all their proposals stem from the intention of giving new life to what had been thrown out.

Complementing the built work shown here, the book presents a series of initiatives aimed at promoting the use of waste in architecture, and articles that illustrate a wide panorama of the contemporary recycling culture.

Ecologies of Inception will appeal to undergraduate and postgraduate students, educators, and professional architects and designers interested in sustainable design and seeking to develop conceptual and design tools commensurate with the magnitude and urgency of the climate emergency.

About the author:

Alejandro Bahamón, an architect, photographer, and editor of architecture books, is the author of numerous publications on contemporary architecture, including Sketch Plan Build, The Magic of Tents, Treehouses, Glass Houses, Houses on the Edge, and (with Ana María Álvarez), Light Color Sound. He lives in Barcelona.

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