BBM Blog – Entry 8

The Re-Use Atlas: A designer’s guide to the circular economy

Since the Waste House was completed in June 2014, our very own Duncan Baker-Brown has been working on a book that considers the challenges and opportunities presenting designers and clients who wish to ‘mine the anthropocene’, i.e.work with existing places, communities and stuff previously mined and processed. Duncan’s book is entitled ‘The Re-Use Atlas’. It will be published in May 2017. However, this blog will give people the opportunity to read parts of the book before the publishing date.

This entry features the eight in the series of case studies from Duncan’s book. This week’s case study details the work by Rotor and Rotor DC’s concept “Rotor Deconstruction” which is a hands-on business that has resulted from almost a decade of research on the flows of materials in numerous industries, including construction. The programme is now a separate cooperative company that has the skills and knowledge to focus on the careful dismantling of parts or the whole of a building and then sell on the reusable materials.

Next week’s blog discusses one of Duncan’s favourite retrofit projects, Jakob + MacFarlane’s transformation of the Docks de Paris building from 1907 into the ‘City of Fashion and Design’. The massive in-situ cast concrete frame and floor plates from the original shipping depot were kept, with the architects designing what they call a ‘plug-over’, which is actually an external steel and glass skin complemented with timber and grassed decks. The new facade is pulled away from the old frame to allow for a new circulation zone. The roof is topped off with an array of solar photovoltaic panels.

Check out the eighth entry here