An urban recovery strategy, Limerick: addressing the issue of waste

Thesis intent- My intent of my architectural thesis is to make the public aware of the rising issue waste in our world. Waste is unacceptable. We need to re-see waste as a resource rather than a by-product to be left to the wayside. We must not let waste go to waste. Limerick city is consumed by waste; waste architecture, waste sites and waste product. The intent of my thesis is to cure the city of this disease of dereliction; to recover and salvage what can be saved, and to disassemble and recycle the rest. Site/programme- The site I have chosen on which to base my architectural thesis is located in Limerick between Thomas Street and Roches Street and adjacent to Wickham Street. It is heavily disused/vacant, and is located on the main route from the train station to the city-centre/ milk market. It contains two mill buildings, one of which (on Thomas Street) has been vacant for five years now. The aim for the site is to reuse the vacant buildings, remove the buildings unfit for reuse (allowing the block to become more permeable) and adapt/ restore the buildings that can be salvaged (the Thomas Street mill). The programme I envision on this site is a city-centre recycling hub, where residents and businesses of the city can drop off their recyclables for free. Located adjacent to the recycling centre will be a workshop run by a FAS scheme, where furniture can be made from the recycled material and sold onsite. Open public areas will be located onsite along with a cafe and bicycle dock. The architectural project- The best form of defence is prevention. To combat the waste in our lives we must stop producing it. I envision an architecture of evolution, an architecture that can be built, un-built and re-built. An impermanent architecture that can be disassembled when not in use. The adaptation of the mill building in this project will be built from a recyclable architecture derived from recycled materials. It will be a spectacle to draw the public to the site to bring them face to face with recycling. Not only will this intervention deal with the issue of waste but it will also be a statement. A statement forcing the public to open their eyes to the possibilities waste holds; waste does not have to look like waste, it can be beautiful and wonderful, it does not have to be limited to furniture and facade, but that it can also be structural.