Salvage: Focus The Nation Exhibit

In the streets of post-Katrina New Orleans, trash heaps have become commonplace. Gutted houses frame mountains of soggy sheetrock, worn-out flooring and tired windows. This refuse provides a visual testament to just how much our residents have lost. To properly address this architectural waste, New Orleans needs a comprehensive building material recycling program.

At the 2008 Focus the Nation Exhibit, Tulane’s City Center collaborated with the Rose Architecal Fellowship to investigate the real-world logistics of incorporating salvaged materials for architectural reuse. The team targeted one typical trash pile along a street in a flooded mid-city neighborhood. Initially, they picked apart the heap of debris to determine the amount and type of refuse generated by a typical gutted house. Then the looked at what they could construct with the materials from one single trash heap - and the process of rebuilding by diverting this waste from the landfill.

The team developed a design for a table that would illustrate the new potential embedded within old woodwork - built entirely out of the materials round in that single pile. In addition to highlighting the salvage opportunities in post Katrina New Orleans, this team also demonstrated a feasible strategy for upcycling material waste.