RenJie Huang

We use over 15,000,000 plastic bottles a day but only 50 per cent are recycled. At the same time oil prices have pushed up the price of recycled plastic by 300 per cent over the last ten years.  Is it time we should reconsider our view of plastic as a purely expendable material? 

The project speculates how emerging techniques in 3D printing could investigate an architecture completely built from recycled plastic. In the built environment large-scale additive manufacturing has been largely concerned with replicating conventional architectural models, ignoring the possibilities of the material and process. Based on a modular system informed by a Voronoi geometry, Stay Plastic proposes a construction process distinct from traditional machining techniques.  The design is lead by intricate sequential layering that allows for the most material efficient but spatially generous units. Through the use of mobile industrial-sized printing arms the scheme transforms the existing Western Riverside Recycling Centre on the banks of the River Thames into s series of mansion blocks entirely built from plastic.