Using Waste Cardboard to Build & Sustain the Resilient City

Rethinking the use of existing resources is one of the biggest challenges to build and sustain a resilient city. Waste collectors in urban areas cannot afford to buy high-quality building materials and do not have industrial means to transform waste into resources for construction. They do have easy access to waste cardboard — one of the most abundant material components of the urban solid waste stream — by employing informal collection methods; however, they still need support to “reprocess/repurpose” this material and reuse it to complement do-it-yourself (DIY) housing construction or improvement. They also need to see waste cardboard as a useful resource and not simply as an unwanted material. In this scenario, the project could motivate communities of waste collectors —and, hopefully, people in general — to rethink the value of waste cardboard by demonstrating that it is feasible (and relatively easy) to use waste cardboard to construct durable housing.

Our SBAU 2021 Resilient Cities project combines craft-based/low-skilled methods with computational design practices and tools in the design, prototyping, and production of building elements made with sheets of waste cardboard and reclaimed wood.