Although the circular economy involves other principles such as the regeneration of natural systems, the reuse or recycling of materials plays an important role in contributing to the reduction of waste generation by giving a second useful life to elements that could be considered waste. Wood, metal sheets, bricks, and stones, among others, can be reused, bringing sustainability and efficiency criteria to the projects, helping to consolidate this concept that still has a long way to go.
Within the Latin American territory, many architecture professionals have proposed to apply in their design and construction processes the implementation of strategies that collaborate with the use of resources, either by reusing, recycling, or restoring different materials and elements in search of satisfying the needs and concerns of those who inhabit the spaces.
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Towards a Common Practice of Material Recycling
We set out to compile a series of houses, lodges, and shelters located in Latin American countries such as Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Ecuador, Costa Rica, and Mexico in order to learn in detail how they apply the reuse of materials in their projects.
Argentina
"Disused materials were recovered, processed in the workshop, and transferred to the site for assembly. The choice of materials and finishes combine technological sustainability with a strong adaptation to the local climate and low environmental impact.
The party is defined by three elements that solve the project: The large metal roof that generates a light roof that protects the house as a double roof, covering circulations and galleries. A metallic prism with movable closings that solve the program (kitchen-dining room, bathroom, and bedroom). A raised wooden platform, to save the accidents of the terrain, materialized with recovered eucalyptus planks, which were planned for reuse.
In the equipment, UPN and IPN remnants of different sizes were used, Hº Aº countertops made on site, interior doors of recycled shutters, and the openings were made with remnants of structural pipes.
The project pursues a recycling awareness discourse, proposing a sustainable solution that reuses different materials for an austere, economical, and easy-to-maintain architecture that adapts to the site conditions."
Learn more about this project here.
Ecuador
"We kept the original configuration of the house, generating readings with the stock and integrating it with the resources we had. On the first floor we freed a wall, thus unifying the entire environment to have a great spatiality of coexistence, a continuum of uses delimited by what happens in height, differentiating the dynamics. From the dismantling of the original ceiling, beams and wooden boards were recycled to build a subfloor and unify levels between the kitchen and the living room, now connected to the garden. In addition, the workshop is next to the entrance and also to the bathroom. The spatial volume changed completely, enriching the experience of the inhabitants."
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"We took the rented house as a case study to go discovering, removing layers, and annexing utilitarian elements. We wanted to prove that self-built elements, currently abandoned and precarious can be refurbished and re-inhabited with a low budget, opening the range of options for other houses in the sector in high deterioration. The rental house was understood from the neighborhood and mixed-use where various activities can be developed along the slope and terraces of the project. It is intended that the rehabilitation investments will be mostly in the interiors of the living spaces and the exteriors will be the result of the appropriation of the neighbors who will gradually improve their access or adjoining terrace.
All the existing wood was salvaged, through a treatment process based on natural oils and pesticides, and the pieces with openings were tied and reinforced. The floors were reconfigured, polished, and reused."
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"Under the concept of recycling materials, we got bricks from a house that was being demolished and used them to separate the social area from the laundry and cellar. The client had recently sold a house, from which he removed the kitchen furniture, which was reused in the construction, as well as the living room, dining room, and bedroom furniture. The concrete floor was polished and sealed with an acrylic coating. The original roof was maintained, and a sheet of insulation was placed over it to isolate the noise generated by the rain and the high summer temperatures."
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"The intervention proposes the integral use of laurel wood, being a traditional resource on the Ecuadorian coast. The first step was the reuse and extension of the original structure of the floating platform to generate repair and productivity space; supported by recycled plastic drums under the balsa wood buoys, to improve its buoyancy. The slope and height of the deck, along with its truss design, are increased to produce cross ventilation and generate storage spaces. The accessibility and functionality of the shelter are optimized by adapting a new bridge. This is in addition to complementary strategies such as inclined wooden panels on the envelope for waterproofing, artificial lighting with photovoltaic cells, and orchards on the riverbanks. With these strategies, the purpose of a transformation of the existing habitat in the same 9m2 space is fulfilled."
Learn more about this project here.
Mexico
"The protagonist element of the project is the earth, which was extracted directly from the site, taking advantage of the manual excavations; it was reused in the construction system and as a natural finish for the adobe walls, which were coated with mixtures of earth, lime, and natural pigments. The palette of materials is complemented by the use of wood in the ceilings and gates, as well as clay tiles and mats that have a particular design made from scraps and cuttings from the floor."
Learn more about this project here.
"The winery is an exercise in architectural over-cycling whose philosophy transforms the conception of waste and reincorporates it into the useful life cycle. "Nature knows no concept of waste; the only species capable of making something that no one wants is the human species." - Gunter Pauli.
Elements from the dismantling of the original warehouse were reused and transformed into doors, lamps, and decorative elements; as well as the use of concrete cylinders considered waste material in resistance tests in material laboratories."
Learn more about this project here.
"The stone marked the starting point. Being on volcanic soil the stony mountains are only covered by a light layer of clay and soil that supports the vegetation. The plants are low and seasonal; vibrant green for five months of rain and dry the rest of the year. The landscape is transformed as is the architecture. That is to say, it is built from a thought of transformation of the landscape, obtaining from the earth, the resources to build habitable spaces.
This house sought to take advantage of the resources of the site; stone walls obtained from the excavation, the red brick vaults, and the clay and lime plaster, where the concrete participates slightly in reinforcing the structure and the steel in containing the glass of the doors and windows. In the search to build a space disconnected from hydraulic and sanitary networks, rain becomes the fundamental resource, which, captured through the vaults, can provide water for the shower and kitchen. The bathroom is dry."
Learn more about this project here.
Paraguay
"On the other hand, the wood openings were recycled, restored, and reused, and the traditional louvered and stained glass windows were turned 90 degrees to become horizontal or vertical pivoting panels depending on the convenience of the spaces and their function to ventilate or circulate. This operation brought an air of freshness and originality to the house without the need to -discard to buy- something new. As for the floor, also recycled in certain sectors, a guided walkway for the blind is incorporated as a protagonist element, made of common bricks that, due to its roughness in contrast with the general glazed ceramic floor, facilitates a reading of the main axes of mobility of the house through its equipped spaces.
Finally, and always within the line of recycling as a creative and budgetary tool, obsolete ceramic tiles were intertwined for their colloquial use, in filters that resolve the requested intimacy with respect to the public road and the service space inside the house."
Learn more about this project here.
"With the idea of maintaining an austere and honest materiality, we explored the possibility of making our own blocks with residual stone from local quarries, manufactured in on-site matrices, at an equally competitive cost as any other material on the market, with the difference that we are reincorporating a "waste" into the circular economy, thus reflecting on the importance of optimizing our resources towards a more sustainable future and emphasizing the importance of labor for the humanization of the processes."
Learn more about this project here.
Brazil
"The resilience of Ecocasa Atelier is multifaceted, which can be seen in its use, as it still fulfills its purpose and today serves as a primary source of income for the residents, not in the form of events but with seasonal rentals. It is also demonstrated through the eco-friendly construction site, which featured a temporary bamboo structure for storing materials and the implementation of a dry toilet for workers. Another example is the complete water cycle on the property (semi-artisan well, wastewater treatment with a biodigester, and infiltration tank). In addition to using the earth from the land itself for the construction of the walls, all the doors and windows of the house are reusable. A training course open to the public on bamboo structures and projects was even organized."
Learn more about this project here.
Costa Rica
"Rescuing this construction technique of our ancestors makes the house a special experience, a hybrid of modern architecture and traditional local materials, a construction that is created with the very earth in which it is cemented, breathes, lives, and adapts to climatic conditions, reducing the impact on its direct context and becomes a possible solution to the current challenges in terms of cost and accessibility to materials, the use of local resources and the socio-environmental impact of the same."
Learn more about this project here.
* The texts are descriptions sent by the authors of the projects themselves.
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