Whole House Reuse

This time last year I had the opportunity to volunteer on Christchurch based project, Whole House Reuse. This project, facilitated by Rekindle and SIFF, came about to highlight the huge amount of building materials that are ending up in landfill due to the post-earthquake demolition drive. To do this, an earthquake damaged home was selected and deconstructed to show the sheer volume materials it takes to build a single family home. The projects intention is to encourage innovative and meaningful uses of the house materials and to encourage reflection on what we consider to be waste. The project also stands as a mark of respect for the cultural history of the hundreds of homes destroyed by the earthquakes.

Van load of materials

An event was held to showcase Whole House Reuse at last year’s FESTA. By this point the house had been deconstructed, catalogued and was stored in the six unused garages of an abandoned, Avonside apartment block. Working with another volunteer and talented project manager, Kate McIntyre, we transported selected house materials from storage to a shop on New Regent Street, ready to be displayed at the event.

Similar to the way that when moving house that you don’t realise the quantity of your possessions until you start packing them; I honestly couldn't believe the amount of materials that go into building  a house until I saw an entire house deconstructed and stored in six garages. Perhaps that’s stating the obvious however there was something about seeing  the components  from bundles of lath, to sacks of plaster, to metres of twisted piping, nails, floorboards, weatherboard, windows, roofing, guttering, doors, sinks, fireplaces, floorboards, kitchen cabinets, electric wires, light switches, all packed away in storage that that really gave me a new perspective. This had been a small, 3 bedroom house. Multiply this by how many other small, 3 bedroomed houses alone were ending up in landfill.

Concrete piles

I felt my view point continually shifted throughout the day as we clambered through the garages searching for and unearthing items that Kate was keen to display. With the display in mind, things that might be considered rubbish or at least mundane became interesting, aesthetically pleasing and almost sculptural. Such as the piece of wood with layers of different paint on it, “here’s a really good bit”; a bundle of plastic pipes, “these look cool together” or concrete piles that somehow had 1930s newspaper print transferred onto them.

The event two evenings later was brilliant; the materials that Kate had selected to put on show looked great. A complete bay window from the house was displayed on top of a wall made of wooden blocks from different parts of the house with-in the bay window of the shop. The concrete piles with the newspaper print were also featured along with photographs of the house and a documentary short about the deconstruction of the house.

Even the Wizard turned up to help

I enjoyed listening to one of the speakers in the short who was the lead salvager. His comments and his respect for the building materials were apparent. He spoke of how houses are constructed by hand so the only really effective way to deconstruct them is by hand too. However there’s obvious cost and time implications involved in that and there lies the conundrum. It highlights the importance of a project like Whole House Reuse is as, if these materials can be reused and their commercial value realised, it will stop them from ending up in landfill with all the long term implications this engenders.

Whole House Reuse is now in the design stage of the project where people are creating new things from the catalogued items of the house. The items will be displayed in an exhibition at the Canterbury Museum early next year and WHR are also doing a special furniture workshop at this year’s FESTA. I loved volunteering on this project and can’t wait to see what six garages worth of a three bedroom house have been turned into!

Potential display materials

Garage full of wood