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Upcycle Studios, Orestad; sustainable housing development, Lendager, NREP

Upcycle Housing Development

-Working example of how waste can be used in construction

-Lower carbon impact on contruction and running costs

-Comparable construction costs

Re-think. Reduce. Reuse. Recycle. Most of all re-think. Carlsberg Chair Flemming Besenbacher speaking at C40, Copenhagen. I visited a sustainable housing development made with upcycled materials at a 70% lower impact and 50% better energy running costs. 


While there are challenges in scaling and waste supply chain infrastructure, the developer + architects (NREP, Lendager) argued there were no insurmountable barriers to scaling this to cities world wide. 


The design and liveability is wonderful. The capital costs while c. 5% higher should come down in future projects.


The ethos behind this was similar to what my friend, Hana Loftus (of HAT Projects)  relayed to me about the Rural Studio project in Alabama, US and her time there.


The Rural Studio are fairly individual projects, made on very limited budgets. They won’t scale like Lendager’s hope to. But the principles and ethos those builder-architects go on to make, do last. 


They are examples of happening now, and happening for a while. 


Links

Hat Projects: https://www.hatprojects.com/projects/

Rural Studios: http://ruralstudio.org/

Article on part of the project: https://arcspace.com/feature/upcycle-studios/

And https://www.dezeen.com/2019/04/16/upcycle-studios-townhouses-lendager-group-copenhagen-recycled-materials/

And link to Lendager https://lendager.com/

And NREP https://nrep.com/