An online platform which categorizes and evaluates the potential functions of various materials, promoting the idea of an endless lifespan for these resources through practices of repurposing
Context
Consumerist societies generate a substantial amount of waste that is burned, landfilled, sea-dumped, or offshored to other countries. Rethinking the relationship with waste is an important part of developing a post-growth economy. One of the major challenges related to the reuse of materials and waste in construction is the scarcity of data on their availability, quality, and proper sourcing and processing methods. In addition, the infrastructure for collecting, sorting, and processing recycled materials is often inadequate or ineffective, further hindering reuse efforts. Could abandoned spaces and materials that are considered waste in fact provide new structures and infrastructures in which people might, in the words of the anthropologist Anna Tsing, live in the ruins of capitalism?
Practice
The Dutch studio Refunc accepted precisely this invitation as a challenge to explore and invert cultural perceptions of waste using the principles of circular economy. Following the idea of urban mining (UM), they view themselves as “urban farmers” who use materials that are readily available, thus promoting the continued use of materials and objects, which might otherwise be discarded, by changing their functions. Refunc adopted a circular design approach where form and function are not fixed but constantly changing. Instead of following a linear design approach where materials are used once and then discarded, Refunc focuses on designing with materials that have already served a purpose with the goal of extending their lifespan and reducing waste.
Everyone can access their concept of a “periodic table of materials and functions” via an online platform where people can register their discarded objects and look for possible solutions of how they can reuse them, either entirely or parts of them. After specifying the primary function of a material, the platform displays detailed possible solutions based on Refunc’s projects that expanded its secondary, tertiary, and even further functions. As an ongoing project, the platform also dissects all of Refunc’s own projects into their respective materials, common objects, and their uses, providing a guide for designers and practitioners to consider the full range of possibilities for each material they work with. Refunc also aims to establish a “passport” for materials so that their reusability and future functions can be known from the start.
Such an approach is vital for introducing the principles of circular economy into the construction sector, for it to shift its focus from a linear “take-make-dispose” model of resource usage to a more sustainable and cyclical one. There has been growing awareness for the need of working with construction waste and discarded objects, by using renewable resources, non-standard management systems and closed material loops. Recovering resources from anthropogenic stocks (such as household waste, end-of-life products, and construction waste) is crucial not only for the sake of resource efficiency but also to mitigate the environmental impact of waste and reduce the dependence on primary sources.