What to do with doors, floors, or windows when a building is torn down? Usually, they are scrapped. But a group of young German architects is on a mission to salvage scrap building parts for use in new projects.

Bonn

In southern Germany, a collective called Supertexture is working to salvage reusable materials from buildings slated for demolition. Instead of discarding elements like windows, doors, and structural beams, the group carefully dismantles and repurposes them for new construction projects, promoting a circular economy in the building industry.

Supertexture's approach includes using recycled materials such as stair railings from demolished post offices and refrigerator doors for insulation. The collective also collaborates with local carpenters to restore and store salvaged wood, like mahogany parquet flooring and hand-hewn roof beams, ensuring these materials find new life in future projects. Their efforts highlight both the economic and environmental potential of reusing building components.

Circular architecture gives new life to old building parts

This old inn in southern Germany is about to be torn down. There's just one last chance for building material hunters Marina Bucher and Louis Nowak to salvage what they can. Yeah, the floor is of course super cool, but you can't really take it out, can you? Maybe you could. It is an original hand-cast terrazzo floor. It's always so exciting. You never know what's behind the doors. They are looking for anything of value that can be reused. Windows, doors, maybe even structural elements. An inspection of the ballroom. Most people would just see old junk here. But these trained eyes see more. What's special is that it's not plastic. It's the real thing. It is industrially produced, but made with good materials that can easily go on for another hundred years. Elements that can be salvaged on a large scale and repurposed are of special interest. The building mantra is typically, we build it and we tear it down. That way we'll always have work to do. A perfect economic cycle for the construction industry. But the exact opposite of a circular economy. Curiously, our society is set up so that it's much cheaper for us to tear down and build new. But in the end, it's just a question of mentality, because there's huge economic potential in reuse. This is Supertexture, a collective for circular architecture. Their nerve center is located in this historic barn in Kaufbeuren. It's a real-world lab that was renovated entirely with recycled building materials. When the local post office was demolished, Supertexture rescued the stair railings. Now they're here, cheap and resource-friendly. The idea for Supertexture came from abroad. Architecture born of necessity. This is one of our first projects in Nepal. Here we built a structure from 700 windows we salvaged from the ruins, left after an earthquake. A million buildings were destroyed. A glass library with a Himalayan panorama. As a new construction, it would not have been financially viable. I'd say architects have a lot to learn from the Global South. Because people there have looked at the world from a different perspective. Because people there have looked beyond their own backyard. They know how costly materials are. And just like in Africa, where every last flip-flop found on the street still gets used as roof ceiling. Everything is reused again and again. So why not here, too? The next project was to insulate the barn's ceiling. At Supertexture, refrigerator doors with a solution, straight from the recycling yard. At some point we thought, hey, refrigerators get thrown out because they don't meet energy standards. But they do still have insulation value. And combined with soft fiber insulation, it does actually make a really good insulation system. Exactly, because in Kaufbeuren alone, about a hundred refrigerators are dumped every week at the recycling yard. The rate of consumption is huge, even in such a small town. Form follows availability of materials. Our idea is to establish a new aesthetic by making what we've done visible. To show that a building material, which at first glance might not seem to have any aesthetic value, can actually look good in the right context. And it's not only about looks. It can really be functional, too. Back at the inn. For 150 years, people came to celebrate here. The walls and all the fittings have stories of joy to tell. Maybe this barroom molding could be reimagined as a skirting board. Even this sink has value. It's pure stainless steel. But they still haven't identified major building elements for salvage. Structurally, it's tough, because everything's built out of steel. It's also a lesson that in every demolition project, there are things that can't be salvaged. Some things, like a beautiful cast terrazzo, are installed in such a way that you'd only get them out again with a huge amount of effort. But I think we've definitely got a few elements on our radar. Our real goal would be to think about the whole house, not just individual parts. Just before this church in Füssen was demolished last year, Supertexture volunteers rescued mahogany parquet flooring, valuable stone tiles, and glass doors. Unlike demolition, dismantling requires care, and that takes time. And once material is salvaged, it needs buyers. Supertexture wants to build a logistics network to make material recycling profitable. The creative ideas are already in place. A church floor for the bathroom, perhaps? Or glass partitions with bronze ornaments? What we are really selling is the story of how the house was built, and how it's been salvaged, and how it's been reused. Normally, a client sits with an architect, and they talk about linoleum, about which color of linoleum. For us, it's not about the color, it's about where the material comes from. A visit to one of Supertexture's partners. Wolfgang Riedle runs a carpentry workshop and an old woodshop. He's a carpenter, but he's also a woodworker. He's a carpenter, but he's also a woodworker. He's a carpenter, but he's also a woodworker. Wolfgang Riedle runs a carpentry workshop and an old woodshop. He recycles lumber from demolition sites, and he's a fan of circular building. For Supertexture, he's storing the 300 square meters of salvaged mahogany parquet. Normally, most of it gets thrown away and chopped up, then burned in a power plant. At best, it goes into a district heating network. But with just one simple process, the expensive tropical wood can be made as good as new. It's ready for another 50 years of use. You won't really see that typical old wood look here, because compared to brand new mahogany parquet, you can hardly tell the difference. The mahogany parquet is now looking for a new owner. And back at the old inn, they finally hit the jackpot. Up top, there's a 150-year-old roof truss of hand-hewn beams. Wolfgang Riedle will dismantle it and rebuild it as a barn, beam for beam. It's simply too good to throw away.

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