Waste House is a building on the University of Brighton campus in the centre of Brighton on the south coast of England. It was built between 2012 and 2014 as a project involving hundreds of students and apprentices and was designed by Duncan Baker-Brown, an architect who also lectures at the university. The materials consist of a wide range of construction industry and household waste—from toothbrushes and old jeans to VHS cassettes and bicycle inner tubes—and it is the first public building in Europe to be built primarily of such products. "From a distance [resembling] an ordinary contemporary town house", Waste House is designed to be low-energy and sustainable, and will be in continuous use as a test-bed for the university's design, architecture and engineering students. The building has won several awards and was shortlisted for the Royal Institute of British Architects' Stephen Lawrence Prize in September 2015.
Background Waste House has its origins in an earlier project by Duncan Baker-Brown, a senior lecturer at the university and a director of architecture firm BBM Sustainable Design based at Cooksbridge railway station in East Sussex. On Channel 4 television programme Grand Designs, he and designer and television presenter Kevin McCloud assembled a "low-energy ... ecologically friendly" prefabricated house made of organic materials. It was the first such building to be constructed in the United Kingdom. Baker-Brown was responsible for the design of this building, which was in turn referred to as "The House that Kevin Built". Originally Baker-Brown planned simply to take down the building and re-erect it at the university. Instead, the temporary building formed the prototype for Waste House, and since 2008 work has been undertaken at the University of Brighton Faculty of Arts to develop the ideas and techniques used on the programme in order to build a permanent house which can be used to test materials, construction theories and new techniques. It is intended to be "a real live research project" as well as a building which the university and other groups can use.
Design and construction Work was planned to begin in 2012 in time for an end-of-year completion date and a public opening in February 2013. These dates were not achieved, but preparation started on 26 November 2012 and by May 2013 construction was underway. Work finished in April 2014, the building was featured as part of the Brighton Festival the following month, the public were able to view the interior during June 2014, and by August 2014 Waste House was complete. Construction cost £140,000 and the total value of the contract was £200,000. Waste House is the first permanent public building in Europe made from waste material. Over 300 students from the University of Brighton, City College Brighton & Hove (CCB) and apprentices from housing provider Mears Group were involved in the project. The construction work was mainly undertaken by CCB students, the Mears apprentices and some volunteers, led by a project manager from Mears Group. Students learning carpentry at CCB designed the timber-framed structure and the "fine timber staircase, finished with a decorative flourish of offcuts". Many of the structural elements were created in the college's own workshops. University of Brighton Faculty of Arts students worked with Baker-Brown on the design, the selection of materials and on interior features such as furniture. Overall, 97.5% of the time taken to build Waste House—2,507 person-days—was provided by students and volunteers, and about 700 people worked on the project. A major aim of the project was to introduce students and apprentices to sustainable building techniques and to allow them to continue testing their ideas by retrofitting new fixtures.
Materials The purpose of building Waste House was to demonstrate that material considered to be waste, and therefore destined for landfill, could be used to create a viable permanent building. Baker-Brown stated that in the United Kingdom, 20% of construction materials go to waste—so the equivalent of one house worth of unwanted material is generated for every five houses built. Between 85% and 90% of the materials used in Waste House are building waste of this type or ordinary household and consumer products which are no longer needed.
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