House of Contamination Shows New Application of Green Design: Trash as Building Material

While it may look like something that a bunch of homeless architects cobbled together, this massive garbage "village" is actually an art piece at this year's Artissima International Art Fair. Conceived by raumlabor, the House of Contamination is made of used clothes, electronics, crumpled paper and all kinds of other trash that were intercepted from the recycling process and taken to be used as main building element. Even the furniture has been constructed of obsolete appliances.

Described as a “project within a project” the junky cultural center is located inside Artissima’s Oval pavilion. Aside being an artpiece within itself, the massive temporary structure serves as an area to showcase and explore dance, cinema, literature, design, urbanism and education. The long, winding space has been broken into open and intercommunicating compartments to facilitate specialized spaces for the different genres being examined. There is also a sliding dividing wall that can either break through to the cinema screen or seal the literary salon.

At the center of the exhibit, a garage covered in used clothes opens and closes at time intervals to allow light and wind inside. There is a long corridor running through the space that is lined with silver-plated paper and fabric that sway with the wind. All of the furniture was designed and made by raumlabor out of recycled fridges, washing machines, doors and blinds that would otherwise be headed right for the dump.

[via Inhabitat]