Waste from the city of Ghent, Belgium, is being turned into the building blocks of a major cultural institution. For a renovation and expansion of the Design Museum Gent, an innovative new recycling process is turning old bits of broken concrete and glass into the bricks that will cover the museum’s exterior. And due to the local sourcing of base materials and the way the bricks harden, the material has just one-third the embodied carbon of a typical brick.
The Gent Waste Brick will be used on the façade of the museum expansion, which has been designed by the London-based architects Carmody Groarke. In partnership with materials designers BC Materials and Local Works Studio, Carmody Groarke developed a method for grinding construction waste materials like concrete and glass into a mix that, when combined with lime, could be formed into dry cured bricks. Instead of digging up clay to make bricks or importing mass produced bricks from outside the region, the Gent Waste Brick is made with local materials and significantly less energy.
“This is a version of urban mining,” says Kevin Carmody, co-founder of Carmody Groarke. “We’ve basically designed a recipe where you can plug in waste streams locally.”
The bricks will be used on the exterior of the museum’s expansion, which is expected to be completed in 2024. Residents of Ghent will be invited to participate in the forming of the bricks as a way of connecting with the city’s history and future. Once the wealthiest city in Europe, Ghent is largely built of brick. Now, demolished buildings are being recycled to reinvent the bricks that make up the city’s architecture
The regulations even limit what such a material can be called. “A brick is a fired material,” says Carmody. “Technically this can’t be called brick under E.U. regulations.” Whatever it’s called, this novel material is showing that even the most time-tested building practices can change.
https://www.fastcompany.com/90804676/this-museums-new-facade-is-built-from-bricks-made-of-city-waste
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