Circular Pavilion at German Federal Garden Show || StoneCycling

Circular Pavilion at German Federal Garden Show

Moving to a Circular Economy

Students, researchers and professors of KIT Karlsruhe, together with the architects’ office 2hs, unveiled a circular pavilion from recycling materials at the German Federal Garden Show 2019 (BUGA) in Heilbronn.

The Mehr.WERT.Pavillon (translation: Added.VALUE.Pavilion) is part of the so-called Mehr.WERT.Garten (Added.VALUE.Garden), a partner project of the Ministry of the Environment of Baden-Württemberg with the Entsorgungsbetriebe of the city of Heilbronn.

Location
Heilbronn, Germany
Application
Pavement

Impact

Waste upcycled with this project 4.520 kg
Circular Pavilion at German Federal Garden Show || StoneCycling
Credit: Jonathan Preker Copter Brothers [Cover image: Zooey Braun Fotografie]

How to live well?

The pavilion and garden explore the question of how we and the generations after us can live well and how we can develop our economy positively while the natural resources of our planet become scarcer.

Situated on a central lot of the BUGA terrain, the pavilion addresses the question of how we move from the currently dominant linear economy towards a circular economy of closed and pure material cycles.

All materials used in this project have already undergone at least one life cycle, either in the same or in a different form. They are installed according to type and can be completely separated again after dismantling.

Circular Pavilion at German Federal Garden Show || StoneCycling
Credit: Felix Heisel

Sustainable Pavilion

The load-bearing structure of the pavilion is largely made from reused steel originating from a disused coal-fired power plant in north-western Germany.

The façades and roof are clad in panels manufactured from recycled bottles glass and industrial glass waste.

The furniture is built from recycled HDPE plastic waste, while the chairs are 3D printed from plastic household waste.

Last but not least, the floor of the pavilion as well as the landscape design of the garden forms an assemblage of various reused and recycled materials and products made from mineral construction and demolition waste. They are set in steel frames, representing the ‘fallen leaves’ of the tree structure.

Concrete and brick fractures in various grain sizes directly reused clinker bricks and WasteBasedBricks® (Radish Raw, Blackpepper Raw, Salami Raw, Salt+Pepper Raw) from FRONT® are used.

The area between the leaves is formed as a water-bound area of porcelain quarry. Broken plates and cups from production scrap and recycling yards are ground for this purpose and applied as a pure base layer.

Circular Pavilion at German Federal Garden Show || StoneCycling
Credit: Felix Heisel

Fülmbüro Stuttgart made a movie about the process and motivation leading up to the creation of Mehr.WERT.Pavillon:

Building from Waste

How can we, and the generations after us, live well? How can we develop our economy positively while the natural resources of our planet become scarcer?

The Mehr.WERT.Pavilion is a testbed for a new urban area that exemplifies how people live well together in a densely populated urban setting.