Can low-grade waste material become high-grade architecture?
In this research project, David Chipperfield Architects Berlin and the Institute for Computational Design and Construction at the University of Stuttgart explored the reuse of rubble by looking at how material, techniques, and digital technologies can be combined to make construction and demolition waste relevant to contemporary architecture. This work was a part of a research project Robots//Reuse, funded by the Research Initiative Zukunft Bau.
Rubble – broken pieces of concrete, bricks, stones, ceramics, and tiles, make out a major share of building waste today. Although most of it is recycled, it is often through low-grade recovery methods such as backfilling and road construction, and the material rarely finds its way back into architecture.
Historically, rubble was widely used in construction – celebrated projects ranging from early Roman and medieval churches to Le Corbusier's chapel in Ronchamp were all built from reclaimed or found pieces such as stones or bricks. Yet, common for all, was the high amount of manual labor as they were built by hand, piece by piece. Today, streamlined production lines, strict material quality requirements, and building processes laid out for uniform, predictable materials make building with rubble – a highly irregular and unpredictable material, often too expensive and time-consuming to be an attractive option. However, advancements in digital technologies open up new potentials, not only for designing fabrication workflows able to adapt to rubble but also for new ways of exploring the material’s design potential. Rubble and robots are a good material-machine match.
Inspired by earlier rubble reusers' hands-on and explorative attitude, this project consists of four parts building up on each other. (1) A theoretical pre-study of reuse in architecture and explorations of (2) the material, (3) techniques, and (4) technologies through the development of building systems and robotic workflows. The result is a series of rubble works that, rather than offering a definitive solution to rubble's challenges, provide a starting point for rediscovering its potential.
