Waste pollution is becoming an ever increased challenge and this is even more so the case in Indonesia. Landfills are notoriously overfilled which, together with little spatial opportunity for appropriate waste storage and separation on a local scale, as well as a lack of knowledge leads to a majority of waste being disposed of on road sides, rivers or burned openly.

The project ‘crafting the disused’ focuses on waste flows and a proposal to support recycling by means of spatial facilities, encouraging the recycling of waste into new materials for the built environment on a decentralised scale. Using only local materials such as bamboo and the locally produced waste as construction material, the design is organised around the community with a self-built approach and as a means to facilitate future densification and enabling the local community to organise their own waste management. Split into a waste storage and recycling facility and a reprocessing facility, local inhabitants are encouraged to consider their approach to waste and furthermore to use this in a creative way, while also generating income for the neighbourhood by means of an integrated waste bank.

Key of the project is to clear the current waste pollution and diminish the stigma of waste as something ‘unwanted’ but instead as a new material that can be shaped to desire.