Nothing In Nature Is Wasted: Reclaimed Wood | WXPR

Two national examples of this trend toward reclaimed wood are the Building Materials Reuse Association, which is a nonprofit educational organization with a mission to facilitate the salvage and reuse of building materials, and more locally, the Habitat for Humanity ReStores, which are retail outlets where used and surplus building materials are sold. Approximately 30% of sales are wood-based materials. Nationally, more than 55 million tons of wood waste is generated on an annual basis. About half of this material is of acceptable size, quality, and condition to be considered available for recovery. Clearly, the amount of waste wood available for recovery in the U.S. is a substantial figure.

Source: Nothing In Nature Is Wasted: Reclaimed Wood | WXPR

Arkansas architecture students make plans to redesign historic stagecoach stop

PHOTO BY DAVID GOTTSCHALK
Lauren Lambert and Katie Murphy, graduate students at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, review architectural documents Friday in front of the horse barn at Fitzgerald Station in Springdale. Students from the university will come up with plans for the site, which once was a stagecoach stop on the Butterfield Overland Express mail route.

McClure, a native of Pryor, Okla., is an architecture professor and associate dean of the College of the Arts at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. He said the Fitzgerald Station fits perfectly with the design studio’s goals for adaptive reuse of historic properties.Smith said the students will come back to Arkansas to present their designs to stakeholders in December.Just having the designs could be helpful for getting grants, McClure said.

Source: Arkansas architecture students make plans to redesign historic stagecoach stop

Daily Inter Lake , Landmark building to be repurposed

A worker dismantles the roof of the Kalispell Lumber building on Thursday. (Aaric Bryan/Daily Inter Lake)

The 22,000-square-foot structure built in 1939 will be dismantled over the next 12 weeks and reassembled at another location in Kalispell. The Kalispell Lumber Co. is an historic local business, opening a mill on Fourth Avenue East north of the railroad tracks in 1904. The mill and lumber company later moved to its west-side location, and employed between 50 and 60 workers until the manufacturing facility closed in 1963. In 1979, Brad Wright purchased the facility and continued to operate the retail building-materials business for more than 30 years. Once he closed the doors to Wright’s Kalispell Lumber, Wright sought out opportunities for preserving the historic structure.

Source: Daily Inter Lake , Landmark building to be repurposed

Out of the woods | National Post

This table used to be part of a barn. HD Threshing

Lots of companies do reclaimed, she notes. “Some are putting barn board on walls, or buying items made from shipping palettes. It’s great that this stuff is not going to landfill. Reclaimed is gaining momentum, especially with younger people.”Yet some claims about reclaimed are not all they’re cracked up to be, so buyers need to know what they’re looking for. In fact some pieces are not reclaimed wood at all, but only mass-produced wood made to look the part.

Source: Out of the woods | National Post

Meet the barrier-breaking woman behind a massive house of salvaged treasures – The Washington Post

Nancy Meyer finds boxes of expensive Italian tile on a shelf at Community Forklift. (Katherine Frey/The Washington Post)

Meyer’s part-time job eventually became a full-time mission to get the nonprofit off the ground. She negotiated with the landlord for a lower rent, cleaned up the store, created guidelines to standardize prices and designed internal structures that would make operations more efficient. Because Community Forklift couldn’t afford advertising, she launched a grass-roots marketing campaign to educate the community about environmental issues and promote the nonprofit. Community Forklift still hosts educational programs, including monthly arts festivals and DIY reuse workshops.

Source: Meet the barrier-breaking woman behind a massive house of salvaged treasures – The Washington Post

Company offers lesson in architectural salvage

The eight to 10 participants then we will go to a “cracker shack” and pull it apart, with hands-on training and oversight “because most of salvage is understanding the ‘feel’ of the wood and how to remove items based on pressure points, leverage, and listening to the cues that the wood gives you.”This $100 per person course — $75 for a second person from the same family or organization — will be fun but hard work. There are risks involved with deconstruction and anyone entering the jobsite must acknowledge and sign a waiver, the company said.

Source: Company offers lesson in architectural salvage

Oregon Coast-Inspired Home by Aspect Design Build – Midwest Home Magazine

The living room features a two-sided fireplace, reclaimed and painted mantel, and ceiling medallion.

A deliberate walkabout in the home reveals additional architectural salvage that is artfully repurposed. The stair railing in the front foyer, for example, is bookended by reclaimed iron posts. “We could only get three, so we cut the additional wood posts in the same shape,” says Winkler. The fireplace mantel in the great room, also reclaimed and then painted to match the built-in cabinetry and millwork, still shows off its dentil molding and fluted columns with the kind of wood joinery used at the turn of the century.

Source: Oregon Coast-Inspired Home by Aspect Design Build – Midwest Home Magazine

Community Forklift wins small business award from eBay, thanks to its mission and its fans | Hyattsville Life & Times

Community Forklift and its CEO Nancy J. Meyer won a SHINE Award from eBay in the Charitable Business category. Photo courtesy of Community Forklift

Community Forklift is a nonprofit reuse center for building materials, architectural salvage and antiques. The name refers to the organization’s mission “to lift up communities” in the DC area by turning the region’s construction waste stream into a resource stream. “These prizes will help us reach a larger online audience, which means we can do more good here in the DC region!” Meyer wrote on a blog post. “We can keep more materials out of landfills, provide more free materials to neighbors in need, and offer more green jobs to local residents.”

Source: Community Forklift wins small business award from eBay, thanks to its mission and its fans | Hyattsville Life & Times

From Seaport shipwreck to fancy furniture: Charlestown woodworker repurposes scraps – The Boston Globe

J. DICKEY Conference table made from the boards of Seaport shipwreck.

On Aug. 11, Dickey will display furniture he made using wood from the historic ship during an event at District Hall, a Seaport venue on Northern Avenue not far from where the vessel’s remains were uncovered. He’ll also share with the public pieces of the ship that weren’t transformed into furniture, offering history buffs and boat enthusiasts a chance to get up close and inspect the leftovers. “All the pieces of the ship will be represented,” he said. “Any person with knowledge in ship-building and sailing will get to see how they originally put this ship together.”

Source: From Seaport shipwreck to fancy furniture: Charlestown woodworker repurposes scraps – The Boston Globe

Buildin’ Manhattan on Vimeo

Buildin' Manhattan from Gideon Camera Crew | Cowboyfilm on Vimeo.

Months and months of long working days… over 6000 pieces sawn to perfection. BUILDIN’ MANHATTAN Dutch artist Diederick Kraaijeveld created a 10 feet long Manhattan in wood, special wood: red cedar from Manhattan water towers. Shipped in a sea freight container from New York City to The Netherlands. One day the piece will be back in New York.

Master of Special Problem Solving, Dave Bennink Disassembles 1,000 Buildings by Hand – Sara Badiali

 

Master of Special Problem Solving, Dave Bennink Disassembles 1,000 Buildings by Hand  

by Sara Badiali

Imagine you are packing your car for a trip. You can only move your gear once, but you still have to maximize space.  Sound difficult?  Now imagine you have to do it with a stranger’s gear.  That’s what Dave Bennink of Re-Use Consulting has been doing almost every week for the past 25 years.

But instead of gear, he does it with entire dismantled buildings.  Dave’s expertise is in disassembling structures, staging the components for transport, and then moving them to be resold.

Dave deconstructs buildings for reuse. He’s dismantled 1,000 structures, in 42 states and 4 providences. He is a master of spatial problem solving. The materials are so big and take up so much space on site that they can only be moved once.

Dave Bennink’s extensive knowledge and experience meant that when the City of Portland passed their new Deconstruction Ordinance, they asked Dave to train the City’s first Certified Deconstruction Contractors. They also tapped him to train and certify a new deconstruction workforce.

In addition to his own business dismantling structures, Dave is a certified Deconstruction Trainer for the Building Material Reuse Association. He’s done trainings for the City of Seattle, Vancouver, other municipalities, numerous small businesses and organizations.

 

Students are drilled in safety, technique, material recovery, recycling, diversion equations, staging and selling materials. All of the lessons take place in the actual building the students are deconstructing.

It is a common site to see Dave drawing out waste diversion calculations on the interior walls one day, and the next day the walls are gone.  If you ever buy reclaimed materials with calculations on them, you may have just purchased a piece of one of Dave’s many classrooms.

Along with his own business, and deconstruction training, Dave also is a consultant for reclaimed building material reuse start-ups. Guiding entrepreneurs with reuse business planning, deconstruction jobs, and marketing used building materials is Dave’s passion.

He is happy to help new converts into the world of environmental stewardship, job creation, community building, and healthy alternatives to demolition. His motto is “Say no to the track hoe”.

 

 

If you are interested in meeting Dave Bennink you can see him present twice at the Decon + Reuse ’17 Expo: Saving Our Past, Building the Future conference in Portland, Oregon on September 24th-27th. Dave will be on a panel with some of his certified deconstruction students. He will also be speaking on the basic principles of starting a reuse business (including spatial acumen).

Dave will be presenting at the Decon + Reuse ’17 Expo with over 50 other building material reuse experts, and hundreds of participants. This is the largest building material reuse event in the country and is being hosted by the City of Portland, Metro, the Reclamation Administration, and Portland State University’s Institute for Sustainable Solutions.

 

Dave Bennink owns and operates Re-Use Consulting, which you can find it at ReuseConsulting.com.  Or contact him at re-use@comcast.net or (360) 201-6977.

Decon + Reuse ’17 Awards Nomination Form

Decon + Reuse ’17 Awards Nomination Form The work of developing the reuse, salvage and deconstruction industries is done everyday by dedicated individuals. At each conference we take a night to honor those people whose daily work has an outsize impact and benefits us all.

If you know a person or organization deserving of recognition for such activities, please nominate them here!

Awards this year will be recognized for folks who are working at the local level as well as those whose impact has been felt nationally. The BMRA reserves the right to make multiple awards in a category, transfer a nomination to another category, or not to designate any award in a category.

Source: Decon + Reuse ’17 Awards Nomination Form

Home-made Hendrix guitar lands in Sandspit – Haida Gwaii Observer

Topped by recycled fir baseboards from Jimi Hendrix’ childhood home, this guitar made by luthier Reuben Forsland also has nails and wiring from the home inlaid in all of its fret markers. The “story” guitar is a collaboration between Forsland and Kevin Hennig of Symphontree Music in Sandspit. (Kevin Hennig/Symphontree Music)

Handmade by Reuben Forsland, a Métis luthier in Comox, its soundboard is made from the fir baseboards of Hendrix’ bedroom. Inside the silver fret markers are wires and nails from the home. For the rosette, the decorative trim around the soundhole, Forsland inlaid bits of paint from the Hendrix home floor, encased in 150 pieces of ebony. “That’s what this guy does, all the time,” says Kevin Hennig, owner of SymphonTree Music, a specialized guitar shop based in Sandspit.

Source: Home-made Hendrix guitar lands in Sandspit – Haida Gwaii Observer

Something old, something new. (Re)using salvaged building materials | Metro

Mary Reese hunts for tile at the new Habitat for Humanity ReStore in Gresham.

Jacobson compares shopping for salvaged building materials to thrift or vintage shopping, and advises shopping early and often. “Stock changes from day to day and quantities can be limited,” he says. “The list of stores is growing and that makes it easier to find what you need, but the region’s supply chain for used building materials is still a work in progress” Also, he says, find a contractor willing to work with you, one who’s willing to deconstruct and salvage materials, as well as incorporate reused items into the new space.

Source: Something old, something new. (Re)using salvaged building materials | Metro

SoDo’s Recology CleanScapes Program Gives Seattle Artists Mountain of Trash

Image Credit:
Hayley Young
Recology CleanScapes Artists in Residence Max Cleary and Meg Hartwig exercises her “scavenging privileges” at SoDo recycling facility.

“What’s interesting about recycled materials is that when it comes down to it, they’re all just things caught in a cycle of being acquired and passed on,” Cleary observed in April, early in his residency. “The materials I find within Recology’s recycling stream have the potential to contain richer, more unexpected backgrounds and be in unpredictable states, which is exciting to me.”

Source: SoDo’s Recology CleanScapes Program Gives Seattle Artists Mountain of Trash

Going green: What’s in it for sports venue owners? | Construction Dive

The Barclays Center opted for a variety of green features. Credit: Adam E. Moreira

Arena designers also repurposed construction materials from the structures that were demolished to make way for the Kings’ new home, resulting in more than one-third of the new building’s material recycled from the old ones. Designers even used recycled athletic shoes for the court surfaces.

Source: Going green: What’s in it for sports venue owners? | Construction Dive

Deconstruction hailed as answer for ailing cities

Details, an organization in Baltimore, is one of dozens of similar groups around the country helping to remake cities through deconstruction. USA TODAY

Advocates hail deconstruction as a win-win that is more economical and environmentally friendly than demolition. They say it creates needed jobs and can help depressed cities turn things around.  “The systematic deconstruction and dismantling of buildings has a profound role in transforming communities,” said Anne Nicklin, executive director of the Building Materials Reuse Association, based in Chicago. Deconstruction seems to be on the rise, Nicklin said, citing programs not only in Baltimore, but also in Chicago, Detroit, Portland, Buffalo, Cleveland and other places.

Source: Deconstruction hailed as answer for ailing cities

BMRA News, July 2017

PDX RUST: A Community Reuse Forum Alongside DECON + REUSE ’17 Coming out of the recent passage of the deconstruction ordinance in Portland, Oregon as well as the event of DECON + REUSE ’17 coming to the city, Sara Badiali of Reclamation Administration and Barbara Kerr of United Neighborhoods for Reform felt it was time for the community to celebrate reuse in Portland.

The result of this is PDX RUST, or Portland ReUse for Societal Transformation. The basic premise of PDX Rust is this: A national conference on building materials reuse is coming to town; how can we get the local community involved with this issue and this resource of expertise?  By inviting venues like cafes and stores to host speaking events where 3 speakers talk about their experience and passion for reuse.

According to Sara Badiali, Portland loves a party, so if you create an event and give people a chance to share their passions, people will come.  The speakers can talk about reuse fashion, building materials, hacker/maker stuff — really anything to do with reuse.

This is an opportunity for DECON + REUSE ’17 conference-goers to get connected to the local community by attending, or even speaking at, PDX RUST events.  You can find out more about the events here.  Postings and calendar will be updated regularly, all the way up through the conference.  Check it out!

Source: BMRA News, July 2017

Fewer CO2 emissions by reusing others’ ‘stuff’ » Yale Climate Connections

Anne Nicklin, executive director of the Building Materials Reuse Association, which represents suppliers of used construction parts, says that only a “a very tiny percentage” of useful items currently is salvaged from building demolitions. Times are changing, though, she says. Governmental officials, mostly at the municipal and county levels, are discovering that reclaiming stuff from torn-down buildings helps them conserve landfill space and avoid the economic and environmental downsides of trucking waste to far-off disposal sites. “They realize that they have a problem and that this is the best available solution.”

Source: Fewer CO2 emissions by reusing others’ ‘stuff’ » Yale Climate Connections

Fireworks Flash Sale Thru Friday – Last Chance for Discount Tix

Last chance for earlybird pricing + outstanding keynotes + book your hotel now!

Fireworks Flash Sale Thru Friday!

Say that five times fast…

In keeping with a celebratory week, we’ve created a special sale and brought back earlybird pricing on Decon + Reuse ’17 for five days only!. Register today to lock in the savings, or wait til Sunday and help donate a bit extra to the BMRA.

Jim Lindberg & Adam Minter – Keynote Speakers

We have locked down two really outstanding keynote speakers for the conference. On Monday September 25th, Adam Minter will kick off the conference speaking to the globalization of reuse and recycling markets. Then on Tuesday we’ll hear from Jim Lindberg of Preservation Green Lab on how reuse is a key tool of re-urbanization and future building.

Hotel Blocks in Portland

The low low pricing that we managed to negotiate at two hotels in Portland expires on 7/24/17 – book your rooms today!

Loch sunglasses are made of 500-year-old timbers from the Great Lakes : TreeHugger

© Loch

These logs are from trees that began growing about 500 years old or more, the remaining spoils of the logging boom that ravished eastern Canada’s forests throughout the 19th century. At the time, millions of logs were transported along waterways, floated down rivers and over rapids and hauled across lakes by tugboats in giant ‘booms’. They were destined for the shipyards of Europe and sawmills of America. Sometimes these logs sank to the bottom of the lake, where they were preserved in the cold, dark water. Only now, nearly two hundred years later, are they resurfacing.

Source: Loch sunglasses are made of 500-year-old timbers from the Great Lakes : TreeHugger

Decon + Reuse ’17 Speakers invited by the Reclamation Administration

The Reclamation Administration has made a lot of friends over the years.

We are proud to say that over a third of the speakers for Decon + Reuse ’17 Expo: Saving our Past, Building the Future are from our invitations. These presenters have all been featured on the Reclamation Administration going as far back as 2011!

Here is a list of Presenters brought to you by the Reclamation Administration.  You can see them all in Portland, Oregon on September 24th – 27th at the Decon + Reuse ’17 Expo.

James Lindberg

Detroit Audio Lab

Eco3d

Sons of Sawdust

ReCor Door 

Ohio Materials Marketplace

Louise McRae

Viridian Reclaimed Wood

Futel

The Rockford Brand

Miigwech Aki Deconstruction

Pioneer Millworks

Space Monkey Designs/Fantom Foundry

diederick kraaijeveld

Wallace Detroit Guitars

Upcycling goes upscale: How an Italian designer does it | Stuff.co.nz

Enrico Moreno Cinzano has long had a passion for design, and now he has turned his attention to upcycling. His Manhattan apartment is full of furniture he’s made from found items. The chair he’s sitting in is made of hemp fibre and reclaimed pine timbers.

After an award-winning stint in edgy fashion design, Cinzano is now all about upcycling and using found objects to create his line of furniture.

Source: Upcycling goes upscale: How an Italian designer does it | Stuff.co.nz

Portland Finds Jobs in Its Ban on Demolition – CityLab

 

“I had no idea deconstruction even existed,” Stigen says. “I was working a dead-end job. I had know idea what kind of trade I wanted to get into.” When she heard later about the deconstruction training, she said her first thought was “perfect. Sign me up.” When CityLab spoke with Stigen, she was on her lunch break at a deconstruction site with Lovett Deconstruction, where she secured a job before the training even started.

Source: Portland Finds Jobs in Its Ban on Demolition – CityLab

Bulkhead to Kitchen Cabinets

 

These came from an old bulkhead in Newark, New Jersey. In the water for maybe a 100 years. Now they are cabinets.

 

 

This industrial crane turned home is actually quite nice – Curbed

Canopy & Stars

“It’s taken three years of planning and design, and only three weeks of building, but we got there. What started as a dream has now become a reality,” said Canopy & Stars managing director Tom Dixon. “We hope people enjoy their stays in this amazing building and wake up to the great outdoors feeling they are truly part of this pocket of nature in the city – a real natural high.”

Source: This industrial crane turned home is actually quite nice – Curbed

Redeveloping NYC’s armories: When adaptive reuse and community building bring controversy | 6sqft

The Park Avenue Armory

Today, the well-regarded cultural venue offers season tickets to its cultural events which range from music to architecture and the celebrated Winter Antiques Show. Several recent renovations have kept the historic building in ship shape. But many more armories remain in a state of limbo.

Source: Redeveloping NYC’s armories: When adaptive reuse and community building bring controversy | 6sqft

This Former Slaughterhouse Is A Perfect Example Of The Circular Economy – Industrial

Chuck Sudo/Bisnow Whiner Beer Co. brews its beer at The Plant and opened a taproom whose bar, tables and chairs were made from reclaimed wood.

 

This 94K SF former slaughterhouse was abandoned and slated for demolition when John Edel — through his company Bubbly Dynamics — bought it in 2010 and slowly repurposed the building into a vertical farm and food production business committed to a “circular economy,” a closed loop of recycling and material reuse. Today, the Plant is home to several businesses where the waste stream from one business is repurposed for use by another business elsewhere in the building.

Source: This Former Slaughterhouse Is A Perfect Example Of The Circular Economy – Industrial

Provenance in Kensington launches new line of furniture, lighting – Curbed Philly

Photos by Matt Faisetty for Provenance
Provenance’s new line of desk lamps were created out of old X-ray head lamps. $400.

Its line of desk lamps, created by melding vintage X-ray reflectors with new bases, soon followed. The next step is setting up a showroom within Provenance’s already massive warehouse, so that shoppers can see the furniture and lighting fixtures on display.

One hope is that the new lines of furniture and lighting will help make trips to Provenance a little less, well, overwhelming. Says Lash, “For a lot of people, when they come here the first time, they look at stuff and say, ‘How do I use it?’ Now, we hope they come back and say, ‘Okay, this could work in my home.’”

Source: Provenance in Kensington launches new line of furniture, lighting – Curbed Philly

Next for Detroit? Find uses for 900 vacant manufacturing sites

The Packard Plant’s south water tower stands above the crumbling complex in November 2010, only a few months before it, too, was brought down by scrappers. (Photo: Brian Kaufman, Detroit Free Press)

“Many of these buildings abut residential neighborhoods in some of the city’s most disadvantaged areas,” the report says. “Without a strategic approach to repurposing these properties, they will remain fallow for years to come, posing threats to public health and safety, and undermining Detroit’s recovery.”

Source: Next for Detroit? Find uses for 900 vacant manufacturing sites

Wallace Detroit Guitars Use Reclaimed Motor City Wood For A ‘Cadillac’ Sound | Benzinga

Mark Wallace of Wallace Detroit Guitars

The reclaimed wood used to build Wallace Detroit Guitars — salvaged from buildings in the Motor City — dates as far back as the early 1800s. The handmade guitars are therefore being built with the same vintage, slow-growth wood as instruments made in the golden era of the 1920s, said Wallace Detroit Guitars founder Mark Wallace. “That wood went into guitars, and my wood went into houses,” Wallace said during an interview at Architectural Salvage Warehouse, the nonprofit where he sources maple, ash, walnut and pine. “There’s something fundamentally different about the wood that went into those [vintage] guitars, and that’s what I’m tapping into.”

Source: Wallace Detroit Guitars Use Reclaimed Motor City Wood For A ‘Cadillac’ Sound | Benzinga

Two years after mystery home demolition, Detroit will clean up mess

Patricia Kobylski has been trying to get the City of Detroit to remove a pile of debris left from an illegal demolition in her east-side neighborhood. On Tuesday, she holds an envelope filled with notes on her calls to city officials.  (Photo: Jennifer Dixon, Detroit Free Press)

The property is owned by the Detroit Land Bank Authority, but spokesman Craig Fahle said city officials don’t know who tore it down in January 2015. Fahle said no one pulled a demolition permit, and the Free Press could not find any demolition or asbestos abatement notices on file with the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality for the property on Westphalia between Gratiot and McNichols.

Source: Two years after mystery home demolition, Detroit will clean up mess

Mayor Catherine Pugh Calls For $40 Million Investment Each Year In Deconstruction Projects And Affordable Housing | Town of Morningside Maryland

United Workers, an advocacy group, founded the Baltimore Housing Roundtable in 2013, by bringing 25 different organizations together to confront affordable-housing issues in the city. The group advocates the city to set up a land bank to expedite the conversion of vacant houses and properties to affordable housing and grant priority to ex-offenders for employment and training to work on such projects. It recommended “deconstruction” a process that will allow for more job opportunities and recycling of building materials.

Source: Mayor Catherine Pugh Calls For $40 Million Investment Each Year In Deconstruction Projects And Affordable Housing | Town of Morningside Maryland

Frank Jones Brewery redo saves architectural treasures

Mat Ouellette, assistant project manager for Chinburg Properties, shows an orginal low ceiling area that still remains, before a new level is built, at the Frank Jones Brew Yard in Portsmouth. [Rich Beauchesne/Seacoastonline]

“The quality is amazing,” said Spitzer, about the wood planks with aged patina. Spitzer said a local craftsman will use some of the timbers to make club room fixtures and tables, mill some for shelving and use other old planks for finish work. More of the pine timbers will be reused for counter tops and furniture, he said.

Source: Frank Jones Brewery redo saves architectural treasures

ReUse-apalooza offers new life for ‘junk,’ new jobs for workers, and new challenges for tinkerers – Insider – Story

David Rueve finished creating a new cabinet for the hi-fi and modernizing it more than a week before the ReUse-apalooza deadline. (Photo provided by David Rueve)

“It was a mess when I found it,” Rueve said of the hi-end RCA Victor cabinet hi-fi he recycled. “And it took some work. But now everything works — AM/FM/AFC, phono, tape (which is now set up for iPod, etc.), lights, all tone controls, all eight speakers,” Rueve said. “It sounds amazing. I mean really good.”

Source: ReUse-apalooza offers new life for ‘junk,’ new jobs for workers, and new challenges for tinkerers – Insider – Story

Battling blight with big data | Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences

Qian Wan , a mechanical engineering Ph.D. candidate at SEAS, and co-author Bradley Pough, a J.D. candidate, provide data-driven recommendations city officials can use to battle urban housing blight.

Their paper, “Digital Analytics and the Fight Against Blight: A Guide for Local Leaders,” examines the problem of urban housing blight, identifies best practice uses of data analytics, and provides data-driven recommendations for municipal officials.

Source: Battling blight with big data | Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences

A salvager’s decades-long dream to build a museum of architectural artifacts – Curbed

Preserving part of the the Rivoli Theater in St. Louis Courtesy National Building Arts Center

“I just love old buildings,” Giles said. “It’s a big collection, without a doubt, the largest that I’m aware of, and the idea was to develop it as a comprehensive study collection. The idea has grown into a collection of pieces from all over the country. The history here is a national history.”

Source: A salvager’s decades-long dream to build a museum of architectural artifacts – Curbed

Friendly Giants Built From Recycled Wood Hidden in the Forests of Copenhagen | Colossal

All of the giants are produced from recycled wood, material that was gathered by Dambo and his team from 600 pallets, a shed, an old fence, and various other sources. Using local volunteers to build the works, Dambo then names each sculpture after one of the builders, such as Teddy Friendly . You can see more images of the oversized sculptures on Dambo’s website. (via Bored Panda)

Source: Friendly Giants Built From Recycled Wood Hidden in the Forests of Copenhagen | Colossal

Historic firehouse to hot hotel: Repurposed buildings revel in their colorful pasts – The Washington Post

A rendering of the planned exterior of the Detroit Foundation Hotel inside Detroit’s former Fire Department headquarters. (Vista (Beijing) Digital Technology Co., Ltd. )

“So many places are the same that people crave difference,” Poris says. “New York is like a mall now with the same stores you find at Somerset Collection [in Troy, Mich.], Milan or Hong Kong.”

Source: Historic firehouse to hot hotel: Repurposed buildings revel in their colorful pasts – The Washington Post

Artist Rides Rivers in a Homemade Shantyboat to Learn About the People Who Live on the Banks

Wes Modes, an artist and lecturing professor at UC Santa Cruz and a crew full of creative mates built a shanty boat out of found materials and trash and rode down both the Mississippi River and the Tennessee River over the course of the past two summers. The collective purpose of these journeys is to learn about the people who live on and around the banks and the about the ecology of the rivers.

Source: Artist Rides Rivers in a Homemade Shantyboat to Learn About the People Who Live on the Banks