Temple of Trash

The Trash temple is constructed out of a number of blocks which are actually pressed bales of millions of PET bottles. The temple was designed by Salzig Design. The structure won second prize at the International Ideas Competition at Folly Dock 2007.
The temple was seven meters high, 10 meters wide, and has a circumference of about 25 meters. Visitors could climb up to the top and also enter the structure on ground level. The idea was that in this place where they could perceive the smell of the garbage they would understand the uselessness of overproduction. The structure was surrounded by thousands of sunflowers that marked the footpaths and added symmetry to the place of contemplation.

 

Temple of Trash
Inside the temple

Shading structure

The South African designer Heath Nash took part in the HIFA performing arts festival in Harare, Zimbabwe, 2011, where he created in cooperation with local craftsmen shading structures made out of found and dumped material and PET bottles. The shading on the image to the left shows a triangular construction made of steel perforated L-profiles. Wires are spanned between the profiles and on these wire the blue PET bottles are fastened. The bottles are empty and therefore very light, thus the wires are sufficient to hold the structure.

Shading structure detail: photo Heath Nash

Truss Fab

TrussFab is an integrated end-to-end system that allows users to fabricate large scale structures that are sturdy enough to carry human weight. TrussFab achieves the large scale by complementing 3D print with plastic bottles.

Unlike previous systems that stacked bottles as if they were “bricks”, TrussFab considers them as beams and uses them to form structurally sound node link structures based on closed triangles, also known as trusses. TrussFab embodies the required engineering knowledge, allowing non-engineers to design such structures.

While freestanding bottles tend to break easily, truss structures essentially consist of triangles. In such an arrangement, it is the structure that prevents de-formation, not the individual bottle. The main strength of trusses is that they turn lateral forces (aka bending moments) into tension and compression forces along the length of the edges (aka members). Bottles make great members: while they buckle easily when pushed from the side, they are very strong when pushed or pulled along their main axis. TrussFab affords building trusses by combining tetrahedra and octahedra into so-called tetrahedral honeycomb structures.

Conclusion:

 TrussFab is an integrated end-to-end system that allows users to fabricate large structures that are sturdy enough to carry human weight on desktop 3D printers. Unlike previous systems that built on up-cycled plastic bottles combined with 3D print, TrussFab considers bottles not as “bricks”, but as beams that form structurally sound node link structures also known as trusses, allowing users to handle the forces resulting from scale and load. TrussFab embodies the required engineering knowledge, allowing non-engineers to design such structures and allows users to validate their designs using integrated structural analysis.