Experiments in Reuse

Circular economy principles provide an order of preference for dealing with manufactured finite materials: 1) maintain/prolong, 2) reuse/redistribute, 3) refurbish/remanufacture, 4) recycle and 5) energy production or sorted landfill. Following this chain of preferred use optimizes embedded carbon and honors embedded labor. Well established practices are already in place for the tails of this spectrum, so in this course we take reuse as our point of design and construction inspiration. Students select salvaged materials from a local material reseller and experiment with material reconfigurations informed by a wide range of related reuse practices (spolia, architectural salvage, upcycling, modular spatial systems), organizations (Construction Junction, Project RE_, Doors Unhinged), and precedents (Earthships, Wallmakers, Lendager’s Resource Rows, Certain Measures’ CloudFill, the Urban Mining and Recycling (UMAR) Experimental Unit, and others). The final project includes a physical prototype accompanied by responsible material procurement plans, model specifications and instructions.