Frederice Koch

Decentralised waste management

‘Crafting the disused’ focuses on waste flows in Cigondewah and offers a proposal to support recycling on a decentralised scale. Split into a recycling and a production facility, local inhabitants are encouraged to consider their approach to waste and to use it in a creative way, to recycle their waste into new materials for the built environment.

Waste pollution is becoming an ever increasing challenge in Indonesia. A combination of over-flowing landfills, little spatial opportunity for appropriate waste storage and separation, as well as a lack of knowledge, is leading to large amounts of waste being disposed of on road sides and rivers or burned openly. This is a particular issue on the scale of local neighbourhoods along the periphery of Bandung, such as Cigondewah. The objective is to offer needed spatial facilities to manage waste on local scales, as well as to encourage the recycling into appropriate building materials, to support the future densification of the area and counter further pollution from insufficient waste handling.

‘Crafting the disused’ is a community based self-build, that supports local recycling and production as an opportunity orientated solution to the challenge of waste pollution in Cigondewah. Derived from a period of research in the field and engagement in active dialogue with local residents, the project enables the local community to organise their own waste management whilst facilitating the sustainable future densification of the area. Using only local bamboo and the locally produced waste as construction materials, and incorporating self-build construction methods, the design is entirely derived from and organised around the community. The built form is designed as a flexible and open structure that is guided by functionality. The deep structure, inspired by traditional bamboo scaffolding, doubles as storage space, whilst allowing the free movement of air necessary in such a humid climate. Split between a waste storage and recycling facility and a reprocessing facility, the architecture encourages local inhabitants to engage in the waste process and the creative reuse of waste, whilst the income the neighbourhood generates from the integrated waste bank promotes waste as a resource to be valued. The recycling facility offers space for assessment of the dropped off waste, as well as spaces for cleaning and preparing of waste for further treatment and temporary, separated storage. Recyclable waste that is not sold on for profit can then be taken to the workshop space for up cycling. The ‘reprocessing facility’ is equipped with a variety of machinery such as shredders, ovens, compression machines and 3D printers for use with a variety of materials and offers a workshop space for public use. A bio digester is used to generate energy from organic waste, whilst also producing fertiliser for the central food garden and surrounding rice fields. The fundamental objective of the project is to diminish the stigma that waste is something ‘unwanted’ but instead to foster the view that it is a valuable new material that can be shaped to one’s desire.