Get Sust! Issue 34

A temporary building designed and built by architecture students from the University of Sheffield to raise awareness of diverting waste material from landfill, has been nominated for the AJ Small Projects Award.

This highly unusual temporary building – known as ‘Space of waste’ – is made entirely from other people’s rubbish!

“Architects and designers have the potential to divert a lot of waste from landfill and create buildings and objects that are both beautiful and original,” said Sarah Hunt, one of the architecture students involved in the project.

The project was commissioned by www.whywaste.org.uk, a free online waste exchange for businesses in Yorkshire and the Humber. The challenge for the student design team was to find and use reclaimed and recycled material from the waste exchange.

Some of the walls are made from the waste ‘skeleton’ sheets of birch plywood left over from the manufacture of children’s furniture; another wall is made from bailed blocks of polythene bags. The roof comprises 900 scrap carpet tiles; and even the building’s lighting is recycled, with chandeliers made from cylindrical Perspex offcuts from a shop-display manufacturer.

Construction aspects of the build were overseen by Geoff Stow, self-build expert and timber-frame construction lecturer at the Centre for Alternative Technology in Wales; with structural calculations by Arup.

Learn more:

	•	See photos of the project at www.beat.org.uk/bm/why_waste/space_of_waste/index.shtml.
	•	See also www.whywaste.org.uk.
	•	Winner of the AJ Small Projects Award will be announced in March.