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Urban mining: recycling buildings

  • by JW

“We have no choice. Our resources are waning. Some materials just won’t last forever.”

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One way to green-up the construction industry is to source materials locally:

Zero km architecture – Vision Group for Sidmouth

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Another is to ‘recycle’ your buildings, with a look at what’s happening in Switzerland on the BBC World Service yesterday:

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People Fixing the World

How to reuse a demolished building

Is it possible to construct a new building, just by reusing materials from homes and offices that have been knocked down? That’s the dream of a pioneering Swiss architect Barbara Buser, who trains specialist treasure hunters to track down everything from window frames to steel beams for her buildings. People Fixing the World finds out about her latest project, which is made of 70% reused material. We ask whether Barbara’s approach, which has a much lower carbon footprint than building with new material, can take off around the world.

People Fixing the World – How to reuse a demolished building – BBC Sounds

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Here’s Barbara Buser’s company in Switzerland:

baubüro in situ

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With more on this specific building project::

insitu.ch/projekte/196-k-118

Kopfbau K.118 Baubüro in situ (Suisse) | Espazium

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And a piece showing the project process:

Wiederverwendung von Baumaterial: Angesagte Bauteile von gestern | Baublatt

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Last year Barbara Bauer won a prize:

Artist, curator and architects win the Swiss Grand Award for Art – SWI swissinfo.ch

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Urban mining is the future of the construction industry:

“We have no choice. Our resources are waning. Some materials just won’t last forever.”

The recyclable building site of the future – SWI swissinfo.ch