The fertility of urban ruins: Obsolete industrial cities as ecosystem holders to activate circular economy

Abstract

This paper seeks to find poetry in recreating, if not beauty, then aesthetic dimension in waste itself, to find perfection in imperfection itself. The underline hypothesis stems from questions such as what is the relationship between the automotive industry and the building industry? What if there exists a knowledge transfer mechanism between the two. What if the know-how of automakers be applied to the building industry? Beyond adaptive reuse of existing buildings and abandoned structures, the image of the city of Detroit as the model of industrialized American city could be reshaped by the knowledge of its memory. This manuscript provides a speculative approach to revitalize one of the most famous examples of an American industrial city. The approach attempts to highlight the importance of activating multi-industry pollination known as industrial symbiosis (IS) specifically between the automotive industry and the building industry using the city of Detroit as a case study. Ideas to test the vitality of this approach were explored and tested in a graduate architectural design studio where students were challenged with transforming the automotive industry by-products, waste streams, and flows into building products and façade systems.

Keywords

• circular economy
• detroit
• architecture of waste
• offal
• resource reuse