Shingle Facade Prototype - 2023
Architects, we need to talk about glass! šŖ Float glass is tricky to remelt/recycle, and nearly all demolition glass is downcycled into bottles or concrete aggregate. Itās a dirty secret of the architectural world; our favourite material, float glass, has a heavy carbon footprint.
Iāve recently been designing/engineering/fabricating a facade system which is made out of scrap insulated glazing units. If you shingle your glass, you can accommodate random glass sizes, allowing a system which can accept glass from the waste stream.
The mis-measure units were kindly provided by the Glass Center Hove. Thanks to the @holcim_foundation for supporting the work, and Sheila Kennedy of @kvamatx for helping to guide the project.
Shingle Facade Prototype - 2023
Architects, we need to talk about glass! šŖ Float glass is tricky to remelt/recycle, and nearly all demolition glass is downcycled into bottles or concrete aggregate. Itās a dirty secret of the architectural world; our favourite material, float glass, has a heavy carbon footprint.
Iāve recently been designing/engineering/fabricating a facade system which is made out of scrap insulated glazing units. If you shingle your glass, you can accommodate random glass sizes, allowing a system which can accept glass from the waste stream.
The mis-measure units were kindly provided for free by the Glass Center Hove. Thanks to the @holcim_foundation for supporting the work, and Sheila Kennedy of @kvamatx for helping to guide the project.
Some more imagery from thesis
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In 1962 Jane Jacobs suggested, ācities are the mines of the futureā criticising the productions of postwar urbanism in a precursor to Rem Koolhaasā reading the city as āJunkspaceā. As these buildings come to the end of their life cycles, the last decade has seen renewed interest in the problem of recycling for different ecological concerns. In 2014 Jorge Otero-Pailos who āretrofitsā buildings by barely touching the surface dust argued, āthe earth simply doesnāt have the energy resources to allow us to continue to demolish and rebuild everything. The logical step is to reduce our reliance on ground-up construction and instead focus on adapting the building stock we haveā.
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#glass #holdingpatterns @mitarchitecture
Some more imagery from my thesis:
Each year the New York Metro area disposes of approx 600,000 tons of glass from demolished buildings. It is typically melted down into opaque bottles rather than reused in new buildings. This design provides a way to assemble irregular pieces of glass (about 24.1 tons per pavilion).
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Thanks to my awesome thesis committee: @digitalstructures + @thebrandonclifford + @kvamatx
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#demolition #glass #architecture #holdingpattern @mitarchitecture #thesis #sorting #scrapheapchallenge
