How can we intercept building and construction waste before it is condemned to landfill?
As part of her student placement with Future Observatory, Alys Hargreaves has mapped landscapes of material re-use stemming from Design Researchers in Residence: Solar to the wider building and construction industries the UK. The research touches on sites of demolition, policy documents and material banks, as well as the grading of so-called ‘wonky bricks’ at testing centres.
The resulting report (below) and film (forthcoming) explore the material and immaterial decisions that enable the re-use of building and constructions materials. The project opens and closes with the borrowed and stacked K-BRIQ – a low carbon brick made from waste construction aggregates – selected by YAA Projects for use in Solar, this year's Design Researchers in Residence display.
Wonky Brick follows the thread of Hargreaves’ conversation with eight different projects, practitioners and collectives who occupy the landscapes of material reclaim in the UK to identify ‘verbs of material re-use’, the current and future infrastructures which are emerging in opposition to the waste paradigm.
The narrative is built from re-used fragments of her conversations, site visits, field-notes, poems, quotes, and analysis which has been made into a film that follows alternative low-carbon material practices – local, circular, and strategic.
Read the transcript/report in our library now, or check back for the full film in the coming weeks.
Alys is an architectural researcher, designer, and writer currently studying on the Spatial Practices MArch at Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London (UAL). While on placement at Future Observatory, she has responded to the 2024 Design Researchers in Residence Solar display through Wonky Brick, a film that maps the landscapes of material re-use in building and construction in the UK .
