- New alliances
In 2016, 44.7 million metric tonnes of e-waste were generated. This is an equivalent of almost 4,500 Eiffel towers.
Electronic waste will be an emergency in the future. The proposal is about transforming the mass of obsolete hardware into a new sustainable construction material.
Digital technology no longer functions within the confines of hardware. They live in an intangibly connected web of infrastructure nested through series of software that controls them. Now, hardware corresponds more to the physical and bodily interface rather than its functions. Once the technology evolves, the obsolete hardware becomes a waste. The proposal gives a second life to those e-waste as a literal ground for architecture. The hardware and motherboards will be casted with resin to become a new construction material. Hardware that is usually sculpted to optimize physical interface will now be manifested in the scale of a body, to function as a ground and public space.
The obsolete hardware becomes space: resilient material that can be shaped in every architectural form. A mass of waste can be transformed into a square and public space.
In the age of connection, where "Noosphere" has become the most tangible and fundamental layer of our planet, architecture has to find new resources. The physical space seems everyday less important, so the architectural project can be an afterlife for the digital connections.
The hardware can be casted in transparent resin, arranged in tiles that can be moved and reused in the future. The material can host every kind of digital technology, that can be quickly changed, dismantled, and when unused becomes part of the e-waste mass.
The Korean Pavilion at Expo has been a first experiment to study the future of e-waste. The base of the pavilion is studied as a topography, excavated into the obsolete hardware, to to host events and public activities.
