Cable reels, window frames, washing machines, diapers, crates, carpet tiles, double glazing panels or old buses - you could recycle, discard or even burn them. 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. It requires special attention and new skills, but the resulting images can have quite unexpected qualities.

Superuse is a practical and inspiring book about constructing new buildings with surplus materials. It was initiated by Recyclicity, a Rotterdam foundation that specifically addresses this theme. Copiously illustrated with many vivid 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. It also considers the subject from the ecological and methodological points of view. Superuse renders the superfluous superfluous.

Made possible by the Netherlands Architecture Fund.