Sustainable construction with repurposed materials in the context of a civil engineering–architecture collaboration

In order to respond to the expected scarcity of fossil fuels, sustainability is incorporated into the curriculum of civil engineering and architecture students with a particular emphasis on: new technologies, new materials and energy efficiency in buildings. Today, the challenge of tomorrow is enhanced by the fore coming scarcity of raw materials. In addition, sustainable construction of new buildings has to be thought without provision of new raw materials. One promising solution for future building construction, considering the limited material resources, is to repurpose materials that have already been manufactured. This relies on a shift of mentality towards reusing/recycling of materials instead of discarding them. This paper presents a pedagogical activity focusing on the use of repurposed materials. The paper describes the rationale behind the re-use of materials and details how the gap between civil engineering and architecture perspectives has been bridged in order to the “design-build” practical workshop. The results of this sustainability exercise are presented through the description of two major constructions erected from a mount of waste in Marseille (France).