Turning waste into inspiration
In Europe the number of vegans has doubled in the last four years and most of these converts are among the young statistically, so it is no surprise that Studentsamskipnaden i Oslo, asked ACE CREATIVE to design a vegan restaurant at their Blindern campus. What is unusual is that the client wanted to construct it from waste materials!
We began looking for such, created during the demolition process in a construction site. When the kitchen was demolished on another project across campus we repurposed the tiles, some whole and some broken, into table tops. Then after the concrete subfloor was excavated, the broken-up bits were used for the main counter.
Yet another source of discarded materials came from local building suppliers, due to the materials being discontinued. Here, ACE found a mixture of timber paneling to clad the walls.
Next, we investigated discarded excess materials or off-cuts from building sites. Off-cuts of timber and Corian were used to piece together new countertops in the serving areas, as well as leftover pieces of wood flooring for new table and bench tops.
The final source of reclaimed materials came from used furniture within the university. We found old shelves from dorm rooms that were being renovated and used them for shelving and drawer fronts. We removed the damaged seats from old chairs and used the legs for benches. We were able to reuse the existing pendant lights, while replacing the outdated shades with new ceramic shades made with excavated earth from local construction sites.
“Sådd doesn’t look like it’s been built in a traditional way and it’s not meant to,” explains Halvor Thorsen of ACE. “When a customer enters, they should see that these are repurposed materials and hopefully they realize how beautiful and functional these materials can still be.”
