200 wind turbine rotor blades go to the scrapheap in the Netherlands every year, just because they have tiny fissures. When Rotterdam-based 2012 Architects, specialized in re-use projects, found out about this, they thought that there must be some way to give the unwanted polyester blades a second life.
In October 2008 their first rotor-blade project was finished: a playground in the north of Rotterdam. "Wikado" consists of five old rotor blades, neatly sawn into pieces by a ship builder, decorated with colourful stripes and finished off with two F16-bomber cockpits. The blades create a graphic pattern and also form borders between different areas of the playground. Around an existing football pitch, the architects placed four little towers made from the fat ends of the blades: there’s a slide tower, a look-out tower (with the cockpits as lantern room) and a tower incorporating a little windmill, which generates energy for a water pump.
Before the turbine-playground, 2012 Architects designed e.g. a rooftop extension in Amsterdam made from old sinks, a shoe-shop in The Hague furnished with scrap wood benches and a shelving system made from car windshields, plus a coffee-bar for TU Delft made from the front panels of washing machines.
One other way of "super-using" surplus material that 2012 Architects puts to use, is mapping flows of building material. “The first sketches of a project are used to make a shopping list. With this list we ‘harvest’ useful building materials from the surrounding region. An architect mostly chooses a form as strategy for his definitive design. Our final plans are a result of what was found. A time consuming job,” says Jan Jongert who is a partner in 2012Architects: “Little is known of the flow of waste or streams of demolition materials. Therefore we started the websites superuse.org and recyclicity.net, which form a medium between offer and demand.” Apparently, according to 2012, the architect has a new role to play."
Via: GuidingArchitects and Monument magazine
Watch the video narrated by Brad Pitt on e2.
Look for webcasts / design series 3 / Super Use.
