Trash to treasure – How to use recycled materials to their advantage, and when not to.
Using salvaged materials to recycle
There is a plethora of designer products that use salvaged materials as the basis of new designs, with the enthusiasm of a new creative paradigm. It may be a reaction to potnetial apocalypse, or just a new fad, but whatever the reason, it’s not difficult to find an example of salvage design in many recent exhibitions, publications and websites.
Obtaining salvaged materials
The variety of available goods made from salvadge trash is growing; there are also less ‘advanturous’ ways for integrating salvaged products and materials into every day living. Many olders pieces of furnitures were built to last and have excellent ‘bones’ but may require ‘modernising’ with new upholstery or fresh coat of paint.
Building materials such as timber floor boards, windows and doors, brick and even plasterboard sheets can be re-used if carefully dismantled at deconstruction, and are available for sale at building salvage depots. Projects may salvage materials on site, enthusiastically aiming to redesign whole buildings only using the materials from the original.
Salvage depots in the City of Greater Geelong
https://www.geelongrestorersbarn.com.au/Geelong Restorer’s Barn
Problems from using salvadged materials
Using salvadged building materials can come with pitfalls – some, such as timber floor boards, can be more expensive than new due to the additional work needed to nail to de-nail, or extra care reuired in salvaging so as not to break delicate timber tongues. Windows and doors may not fit into standard openings, so need to be selected at design stage to be designed into the building. Bricks do always come in the squeaky clean and consistint colouring of new bricks but with some creativity and imaginations can form a new aesthetic.
The future of salvage in Design
Is salvage design just a design fad or it will part of the solution in creating a more sustainable future. Only the time will tell. Dick Clarke (Director of Envirotecture suggested, “the building material can only be successfully re-used if their removal from the orginal building does them no harm.
He further said, the deconstruction – tile by tile, brick by brick, stick by stick – is simply the reversals of the most houses are currently built. Deconstructing old at the very least provides work for some people than a single excavator operator, while recovering so much material in the process. These materials can be used in other renovations if not on site in the new build.
References:
Clarke D, 2008, How to rethink building materials, p.d. 30, CL Creations Pty Ltd
Mate K, School of Architecuture & Design, University of Tasmania
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