ALCHEMY a seemingly magical process of transformation, creation, or combination : waste - waste not

Abstract

RESEARCH QUESTION: How can organic waste be used as sustainable material for an architectural proposition that has the potential to educate and promote a sustainable way of looking at waste?

ABSTRACT: Waste has become a major issue worldwide, especially in terms of the environmental damage it causes. Scholars from a variety of disciplines are increasingly writing about the need for waste reduction and sustainability in general. However, while there is a lot of research being done on how to deal with waste at the ‘end point’ of its lifecycle, not much of work is focused on how to eliminate the concept of waste more broadly. This study seeks to discover creative architectural solutions that utilise waste and are responsive to climate change and environmental degradation. Specifically, this research has investigated the architectural potential of waste material from forestry production through exploring new building materials and systems that incorporate forestry waste.

The architectural proposition is achieved through an examination of scholarly literature, precedent projects and architectural explorations which include sketches, diagrams, spatial composition and physical models.

This study focuses on two separate but interconnected phases: (i) the investigation of waste options and the connection to an element in an architectural context (ii) the integration of these elements into a complete architectural proposition. These phases inform and influence the trajectory of each other.

This has informed the design of a manufacturing and education facility which utilises peeler core ‘waste’ and which also acts as a mechanism to educate and promote new waste utilisation methods. Overall, this research project provides an example of how organic waste can be used as a sustainable material for an architectural proposition that is able to promote a sustainable way to approach the problem of waste.