Another achievement for recycling

Architects around the world are constantly looking for new design ideas and investigating new materials. This approach helps the industry to move forward and means the people involved in designing and building properties can continue to be creative and forward thinking. One of the biggest movements in the industry is using recycled items as an alternative to traditional building materials. This provides many great benefits, including reducing the cost of constructing properties and helping to protect the environment. There have been many great projects around the world using salvaged and recyclable items, many of them with unique, cutting edge designs.A recent project that is receiving renown is the idea of aspiring architect Li Rongjun. He has used 8,500 recycled glass beer bottles as a building material to construct the office for his budding business. The project took four months to complete and cost $11,000. The end result is a 300 sq ft office that serves the dual purpose or being functional and demonstrative of his skills and creativity.It took 40 layers of bottles to create the sturdy structure. The interior is incredible because of how they are positioned. Light can shine in through the necks of the bottles because they are unobstructed. This creates a really amazing effect inside, making the walls appear to glow. When lights are turned on inside the office the walls are lit with green light, both inside and out.The property is unique because it is made by leaving the bottles whole. Recycled glass has been used on other projects but it is typically crushed and formed into a composite building material. The Morrow Royal Pavilion in Las Vegas is the most impressive of these. It is made from GreenStone, a composite made from glass beer bottles that have been crushed and mixed with fly ash that is an alternative to concrete. The pavilion is made from 500,000 of them, keeping 290,000 lbs of glass from landfill.At Coffey Architects we understand the importance of recycling and eco-friendly building. We use these principles in all of our projects, whether it is in London or overseas.