Revival Project’s Zero Footprint Repurposing Hub has been awarded the 2022 Melbourne Design Week Award for best event.
The hub is a dedicated space for repurposing waste from construction and demolition. In line with one of Design Week’s pillars, Revival is exercising the credo of “making good,” salvaging and reusing building materials on a scale that hasn’t previously been achieved.
The Zero Footprint Repurposing Hub is located in a 150-year-old warehouse in Collingwood that previously housed textiles.
Image:
Sean Fennessy
Founder Robbie Neville started Revival in 2016 after he was confronted by the lack of sustainable construction practices Australia – in particular, the failure to incorporate perfectly good existing materials in new projects.
“When I took on my own projects as a building practitioner, it was so frustrating how challenging it was to incorporate recycled materials into my work,” said Neville. “I wanted to make repurposing fundamental to new design and construction, but our industry is not set up whatsoever to incorporate alternative recycled materials at an elemental level.”
Robbie Neville (pictured) started Revival in 2016 after he was confronted by the lack of sustainable construction practices Australia.
Image:
Sean Fennessy
Despite the impacts of the global pandemic, Australia’s construction industry remains prolific, with government investment in public infrastructure contributing to many states’ economic recovery plans. But with this growth comes an enormous amount of waste. Neville sees it as his responsibility to normalize responsible handling as standard practice.
“This industry’s been predicated on 200 years of reckless consumption. The paradigm is: harvest, fabricate, consume, dispose – it’s a legacy of the industrial revolution,” Neville explained.
In the current paradigm, almost half of waste worldwide comes from construction and demolition. In Australia, this accounts for a total of 44 per cent of all managed waste.
Revival is working with Grimshaw Architects to put 100 per cent of the materials from the existing warehouse back into the new build.
Image:
Sean Fennessy
Neville’s mission is to redefine our understanding of “waste.” He and the team want to work with architects and developers to help them to understand the value of what they already have. He wants to encourage a reappraisal of what the industry determines as “waste.”
When something is nominated in drawings for demolition, “there’s an abdication of responsibility in that moment when a council or architect or builder deems those materials irrelevant,” he said.
The Islington Street Zero Footprint Repurposing Hub came to life when Neville teamed with Grimshaw Architects, who were designing a multi-storey building out of a former textile warehouse in Islington Street, Collingwood. The 100-year-old warehouse has become a temporary home for salvaged materials before its own demolition in 2024. For the duration of its tenancy, Revival is working with Grimshaw to put 100 per cent of the materials back into the new build.
Neville said 20-metre timber trusses in the original warehouse are undoubtably old growth most likely from North America, and could be thousands of years old.
Image:
Sean Fennessy
Occupying an enormous 1,000 square metres, Revival’s Collingwood hub offers a free storage space for architects and builders to keep salvaged materials before they can go back into the new project.
“There is such a time gap between demolition and the project coming to life,” Neville said. “We’ve offered this free space to try and solve that last major barrier preventing people from using what they already have.” No one who uses the hub will be obliged to use Revival’s services, so long as they’re making use of the salvaged materials they keep on the site.
The Zero Footprint Repurposing Hub houses six years’ worth of Neville’s projects that each help prove the viability of his solutions. Neville is chipping away at reservations, debunking the myth that recycled timber always has to be rustic with beautifully refined case studies and bespoke furniture pieces. “Every shopfront of an R.M. Williams store across the country has been made from a building that was demolished in Fitzroy,” said Neville.
He’s also debunking the myth that sustainable methods are more costly than traditional builds with a project by Assemble, where there is a clear commercial upside of working within a circular system. “Every single one of the installations represents the ideas we’re putting forward and proposing,” he said.
Standing at an enormous 1000 square metres, Revival’s Collingwood hub offers a free storage space for architects and builders to keep salvaged materials before they can go back into the new project.
Image:
Sean Fennessy
“The fruit couldn’t be hanging any lower,” said Neville. “The city is built out of old growth timber and brick. We’re still demolishing first-round developments that are a couple of hundred years old, so the scope of opportunity is palpable.”
Neville hopes to harness the momentum, energy and exposure brought about by Melbourne Design Week to drive the mission forward. “The city is full of vacant buildings; there is no reason why with more cohesion between the different players, this couldn’t be transferrable on a larger scale.”
Revival Projects’ repurposing hub is open on Friday 25 March for Melbourne Design Week. Click here to view the exhibition details. ArchitectureAU is a media part of Melbourne Design Week.
Source: Architecture - architectureau
