HDR Architecture has created a temporary exhibition that explores sustainable housing alternatives and personal power generation. They’ve constructed a temporary living structure built entirely out of wooden shipping pallets. These pallets are found all over the world, making this a solution that could be easily duplicated. It’s also human powered. Visitors can ride a bike which generates 125-200 watts to run the LED lights inside the house. This experiment makes great use of a material that many times is thrown in the trash.
Jetson Green has the statistics:
It’s estimated that there are about 2 BILLION ordinary unit load pallets in circulation globally, and about two-thirds of these are only used once. It’s further estimated that U.S. companies throw away roughly 4 billion board feet of wood pallets every year. Pretty crazy, I know.
[via Jetson Green]
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To me the opportunity here is for someone to design pallets with this 2nd life in mind, vs simply “figuring out” what to do with them.
Heineken at one time designed “brick” bottles that could be used for cheap yet effective building materials post-beer consumption.
This is the challenge to designers of EVERYTHING…not only is the item truly needed, but once it serves it’s initial purpose, how does it live on to serve humanity. Tough questions. Tougher assignment.
June 20th, 2008 at 10:24 am