Commonly used as storage support for products in supermarket stocks and fairs, pallets are versatile. After their primary function has been discarded, the reuse of pallets for other purposes is increasingly common, collaborating to the reduction of the amount of waste discarded, especially as raw material for the creation of furniture and decks. However, going beyond the commonly highlighted DIY furniture tutorials on youtube, these structures are gaining ground as the main element in the construction of ephemeral architecture, such as small pavilions and urban installations. In fact, these small pieces can be stacked and united together in different ways and patterns.
With this in mind, we have selected 6 projects that reuse pallets as their main structural material, and create incredible facilities produced at low cost. Check it out below:
Pavilion of recycled pallets / Avatar Architettura
"The pavilion is located in one of the gardens of Villa Romana, the German Institute of Culture in Florence, Italy. The collapsible 100m² construction is made from prefabricated pallets that form an articulated wooden structure in rhombuses and is surrounded by a continuous membrane of opaque PVC on the ceiling and transparent on the walls."
Urban Bloom / AIM Architecture + URBAN MATTERS
"Urban Bloom can be considered sustainable, mainly because of its materials, mostly recyclable. The recycled wooden pallet structure is used as a wave pattern helping to define a variety of spaces: casual meetings, small classes, open-air theater and etc."
Temporary Observatory / BAG
"The observatory uses 120 disassembled wooden pallets, with wooden planks and nails from the original structures. The team, led by Paolo Robazza, from BAG, together with collaborating architects Cecilia Tognoni and Gilles Mascaro, piled the wooden pieces in an irregular way, forming a circle. The result has a series of features on the facade that arouses the interest of outsiders with glimpses of the interior."
Temporary Pavilion / Aarhus School of Architecture
"Nine students from the Aarhus School of Architecture, one of Denmark's leading architecture universities, transformed the typical university district into an activated social center with a temporary pavilion. In a quick ten-day workshop, students designed and built the pavilion with 420 recycled pallets."
Pallet Pavilion / Gap Filler
"What makes this place, called the Pallet Pavilion, appealing to people, is not only its community management function but the fact that it was built with sustainable building materials. Made from over 3,000 reused wooden pallets - and with the help of 250 volunteers - the pavilion functions as an open-air community center as well as a garden in the middle of the city."
Pallet House / Schnetzer Andreas Claus + Pils Gregor
"With many sustainable and recycled projects circulating, it is always fun to show one that incorporates a material that is being used differently from its original use, a never seen before approach. [...] The new function of the pallets in this intervention, provides a surprisingly pleasant touch on the outside (especially in relation to the night images)."
This article is part of the ArchDaily Topic: Recycled Materials. Every month we explore a topic in-depth through articles, interviews, news, and projects. Learn more about our monthly topics here. As always, at ArchDaily we welcome the contributions of our readers; if you want to submit an article or project, contact us.
