13:00 rC1 MaTerial loCale

Students: Zihan Xiang, Jiaxin Yue, Jun Yue.

Design: Hadin Charbel and Déborah López Lobato

Technical: Zehao Quin and Vicente Sánchez

Theory: Albert Brenchat - Aguilar

Material Locale explores the feasibility of achieving a circular economy for building materials in urban environments. The project seeks to develop a system for recycling existing building materials based on different demolition and reuse methods, measured under the various realities of cost, carbon, machinery, transport etc.. Machine learning and 3D scanning are used for to create a hyper-local material library, the resulting inventory of which is shared on a platform. Additionally, an incentive mechanism based on material currency credit is used for online material transactions between people. Beginning in London, the true ambition is to address the issue of excessive global resource extraction by providing a framework for a systematic approach that can be applied universally in cities around the world through a new carbon credit currency system. As a result of such an approach, responding to material and other constraints could potentially yield a new form of vernacular, displayed through both materiality and assembly logics.