Construction has completed on the Waste House in Brighton, UK. The scheme was designed by Senior Lecturer at the University of Brighton and local architect Duncan Baker-Brown with undergraduate students, and constructed by apprentices from The Mears Group, students from City College Brighton & Hove and The Faculty of Arts. Volunteers also played a key role in the construction process.
The Waste House is the first permanent building in the UK to be completed using 85% discarded materials with the intention for the site to now be used as an experiment to test the performance of these resources over the coming years. Cat Fletcher of FREEGLE UK developed the idea, with the Faculty of Science & Engineering inserting sensors into the walls to monitor the building performance.
A phenomenal amount of ‘building materials’ were donated by companies and individuals across the UK, including but not limited to: 19,800 toothbrushes; 2 tonnes of denim jeans; 4,000 plastic DVD cases for wall insulation; 2,000 used carpet tiles used as cladding for the façade; 600 sheets of second-hand and/or damaged ply; 2km of second-hand 2” by 2” softwood timber; 20 litres of paint; 10 tonnes of chalk; 2,000 bolts; approximately 800 sq m of DuPont™ Tyvek® Housewrap and DuPont™ Tyvek® UV Façade membrane; and 250 sq m seconded/returned Kingspan insulation.
Education programmes, community groups and ‘green’ events are invited to use the house to publicise the team’s efforts and findings. The development was conceived as a prototype and ‘long-term living experiment’, and has received a lot of media attention since opening at the University of Brighton Graduate Show earlier this June.
