Victor Meesters - Renewal in Remnants & End of Life Innovations

The Hearing Architecture podcast, proudly sponsored by Brickworks, presents Again and Again and Again, a mini-series hosted by Hilary Duff.

Each week we bring you interviews and conversations as we seek better ways to understand, harness and deploy the expertise and knowledge of professionals currently within the design community, at home and abroad. Our guests are all experts on circularity within the building industry and share the aim to display that waste is not an accident, but the consequence of decisions made at the design stage. Here is our opportunity. We as designers have an opportunity to do better.

The built environment sector, notorious for its resource consumption and waste generation, faces a pivotal moment. In a world where 'away' is a luxury we can no longer afford, the linear economy's destructive ‘Take, Make, and Throw Away’ model demands reconsideration and urgent action.

In this episode, I speak with Victor Meesters, a Paris-based architect working with the Belgian collective Rotor.

Since 2005, Rotor has operated as a multidisciplinary group of architects, designers, and other professionals interested in the processes that shape a building. Specifically, they are interested in the flow and transit of materials in the industrial and construction sector and the industry’s relationship to resources, waste, use and reuse. 

Their research is disseminated through publications, critical writing, workshops, and conferences. And they work with the expanded construction industry to produce exhibitions, books, economic models, and policy proposals. 

On a practical level, they work to combine their research with the design and realization of architectural projects, coordinating large-scale dismantling operations of reusable construction elements and collaborating on architectural projects. Since 2014 their commercial spin off: Rotor DC ,or deconstruction, has been an active arm of the studio, which oversees deconstruction projects in end-of-life buildings with a view to finding them a new use. In practice, the team goes into buildings slated for demolition and sells off parts of those buildings. It documents building elements, creates a catalogue of the items, estimates how much it would cost to salvage the materials, and delivers them directly to the client. At the conception of the business, Rotor DC almost exclusively sold materials dismantled by its own workers, however the shop now also trades materials from several other suppliers such as demolition contractors and real estate companies.

Back in June 2023, I got to explore the salvage yard and the store houses which surround the offices of Rotor and Rotor DC. They are based within the urban setting of Brussels. A tactical metropolitan locale, working with the studio’s goals to become a central part of a regional ecosystem for large scale reuse.

As I walked through the ‘house of doors’, past the neat piles of salvaged stone, and through the aisles of plumbing fixtures, it was easy to understand the convenience and appeal of the organisation to ‘mum and dad’ renovators, to other architectural studios, or to developers alike.

The business is proud to announce that many of the stocked materials are cheaper than new for the same quality. Some materials may be equally expensive as new, but come with a great story, a deep patina or simply a clear conscience. And then, from time to time, they offer pieces or materials that were conceived by renowned designers, created by skilled craftsmen, or made using technologies now out of reach. On the day of my visit, there were pieces of a gothic cathedral from Antwerp available for someone to snap up, whilst later in the week I saw some rare and well-kept mid-century desks by an iconic local designer. These pieces are priced a bit higher, but Rotor notes their hope that the economies made with the more generic materials help bring them in reach of the many.

In my conversation today, I speak with Victor about the realities of their processes and how Rotor has carved a niche for itself working at both ends of the theory- practical spectrum.  It was a joy to explores the birth as well as the afterlife of buildings and to touch on the impressive undertaking of the complex system of many stakeholders.

This has been Again&Again&Again, a mini-series of Hearing Architecture, proudly sponsored by Brickworks, made possible with the support of the Alastair Swayn Foundation. This episode was recorded during a period of residency with the SIM Icelandic Arts Association in Reykjavik. Thank you so much for listening and thank you to our international guest Victor Meesters of Rotor. Thank you for encouraging us to be as generous with this city as it is with us.

Let’s watch this space and we look forward to speaking with you again in the future.

Our sponsor Brickworks also produces architecture podcasts hosted by Tim Ross. You can find ‘The Art of Living’, ‘Architects Abroad, and ‘The Power of Two’, at brickworks.com.au or your favourite podcast platform.

If you’d like to show your support please rate, review, and subscribe to Hearing Architecture in your favourite podcast app. If you want to know more about what the Australian Institute of Architects is doing to support architects and the community please visit architecture.com.au

This is a production by the   Australian Institute of Architects Emerging Architects and Graduates Network, in collaboration with Open Creative Studio. The miniseries Again&Again&Again is proudly supported by the Alstair Swayne Foundation. The Institute production team was Madelynn Jenkins, and Claudia McCarthy, and the EmAGN production team was Daniel Moore.

This content is brought to you by the Australian Institute of Architects Emerging Architects and Graduates Network, in collaboration with Open Creative Studio. This content does not take into account specific circumstances and should not be relied on in that way. This content does not constitute legal, financial, insurance, or other types of advice. You should seek independent verification or advice before relying on this content in circumstances where loss or damage may result. The Institute endeavours to publish content that is accurate at the time it is published, but does not accept responsibility for content that may or will become inaccurate over time.

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