48-615 Experiments in Reuse

6 units, Carnegie Mellon University

Circular Economy principles provide an order of preference for dealing with manufactured finite materials: 1) maintain/prolong, 2) reuse/redistribute, 3) refurbish/remanufacture, 4) recycle, 5) energy production or sorted landfill. Following this chain of preferred use optimizes embedded carbon and honors embedded labor. Well established practices are already in place for the tails of this spectrum, so in this course we take reuse as our point of design and construction inspiration. Students will select salvaged materials from a local material reseller and experiment with material reconfigurations informed by a wide related range of reuse practices (spolia, architectural salvage, modular spatial systems), organizations (Construction Junction, Project RE, DoorsUnhinged), and precedents (Earthships, Wallmakers, Lendager's Resource Rows, Certain Measures' Cloudfill, the The Urban Mining and Recycling (UMAR) Experimental Unit, and others). The final project will include a physical prototype accompanied by responsible material procurement plans and model specifications.

Prerequisites: none listed

Offered: Spring 2027, Spring 2026

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