Material preservation: reuse of the man-made capital as an ecological approach in architectural design

This paper aims to depict the potential role of the reuse of building products and components as a sustainable strategy for the management of the built environment, as well as evaluate the contributions this perspective brings to the architectural and cultural debate. Among the circular strategies, reuse exceeds the ecologic potential of recycling processes, as through the preservation of man-made capital – understood as a product of the Anthropocene – it ensures the persistence of the material culture that conceived it. In this paper I shall discuss the implementation of reuse through an overview of the European practitioners’ activity in the field. The first section contextualises reuse within a multidisciplinary framework, illustrating its role as a resource efficiency approach in urban mining strategies. The second section details the implications of this approach for the methods and outcomes of architectural design, both through an examination of the current theoretical position and the analysis of contemporary case studies, stressing the ecological purpose and cultural significance of these practices. The third section analyses how the bricoleur approach in architecture represents an attitude able to ensure the preservation of both cultural and natural capital, framing this perspective in the contemporary architectural domain