Why Did We Choose These Materials to Build With?

We specifically chose materials that would be aesthetically compelling and structurally sound, while illustrating a variety of different types of waste: from construction, common consumer activities, automobiles, computers and civic services. Overall, the project removes 14 tons of material from the waste stream.

Reclaimed Steel (including 65 mid-size sedan hoods)

Using reclaimed steel saved the equivalent of one person’s carbon emissions for an entire year (7.5 tons of carbon dioxide).

Reclaimed Wood

Using reclaimed lumber and plywood is admittedly a labor-intensive and time-consuming process. Dismantling, removing nails, staples, and glue, removing or working around defects takes time, labor and focused effort. However, by taking the time to use salvaged wood, we left 7.4 Douglas Fir trees standing—90 ft tall trees.

Plastic Water Bottles

The bottle wall is made of approximately 3000 16oz (550ml) water bottles. This represents the volume of bottled water consumed in San Francisco every 11 minutes, despite the fact that San Francisco has some of the cleanest tap water in the world. And if you think that's bad, 2 million plastic beverage bottles are used in the United States every 5 minutes.

Circuit Boards

The circuit boards we used as our arch facades represent the volume of electronic waste landfilled in the U.S. every 2 seconds. Normally, these circuit boards are shipped overseas to China (expending great amounts of fossil fuels for the trip) for processing. They are melted down to extract the precious metals found in them, and the highly toxic runoff generally flows into and pollutes river waters.