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Cameron Wiles

MArch

Part II Architecture Student
I am passionate about designing with a consciousness to materials which looks beyond the traditional interfaces designers engage with, understanding the ramifications of the ways we live, work and design.

Waste Not Want Not

Waste Not Want Not is a year-long research-through-design project that explores an urban regeneration scheme within the heart of Bucharest. The project focuses on viewing the masterplan not as a catalyst for growth but one of consolidation, responding to Bucharest’s state of decay, personified by the incomplete ruins of the Casa Radio building.

Waste Not Want Not: The project’s primary focus centres around Bucharest’s state of transition as it becomes increasingly westernised and its population progressively continue to learn to waste. What if Urbanisation did not correlate to depletion?

Resource Prospecting

The following section outlines a range of potential applications of materials found within Bucharest, exploring the potential for materials to adapt to various design scenarios and form new lives once their operational lifespan has elapsed. The project operationalises this new way of practising as a method for engaging with the latent potential of waste materials, understanding how potential design applications of reclaimed materials can inform their extraction and processing method.

Exploring the re-use of reclaimed concrete elements within a new development forming load-bearing floor slabs with a new structural frame
Exploring lighter-weight facade compositions which utilise metals reclaimed from transport infrastructure and hoarding boards
Form Follows Availability: Exploring how the form of reclaimed construction materials can become sources of form-giving
The visualisation above provides an overview of the selected portion of the system mapping for the reclamation, processing and re-use of Bucharest’s latent material stock. The final stage focuses on re-using concrete elements in building a factory, which acts as a civic interface with the broader master plan.
Factory Outputs Stage 00: The factory targets the consolidation of existing buildings within Bucharest’s context, such as the looming communist accommodation block adjacent to the site
Factory Outputs Stage 01: The factory develops a scaffolding for the ad hoc re-appropriation of the accommodation block, allowing residents levers of agency over their living spaces
Factory Outputs Stage 02: When complete, this rendition offers a series of winter gardens clad in reclaimed materials, providing spaces to extend and support the existing apartment blocks
At the centre of the master plan, the carcass of the Casa Radio building is reduced, consolidated and repurposed as a structure for storing reclaimed materials. This enables the flow of resources and recirculation of materials through the city through the factory as an agitator for civic and economic change.

Form Follows Availability

The design of the factory not only facilitates the reuse of materials but also acts as an advertisement for the services of the company occupying the factory. In the space created within the public plaza, a market for makers engages with human-scale resource availability for product-scale reuse opportunities.

This web page documents a selection of the work produced throughout this design project and throughout the year. The end-of-year show and subsequent posts on my Instagram account will provide a deeper content selection. Thank you for viewing the work.

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