The French design firm Chartier-Corbasson has come up with an innovative skyscraper, which would be built using the recycled waste of its occupants. The so-called Organic London Skyscraper would be constructed from panels that are made from recycled plastic (e.g. plastic bottles, …), which would all be sorted and refabricated on site. The skyscraper is called organic, because floors would be added on according to demand for new housing units.

One of the aims of the Organic London Skyscraper plan is also to show how the costs of building a skyscraper could be kept down. The residents themselves would be producing the building blocks for the structure and Chartier-Corbasson believes that, within a year, enough this recyclable waste materials could be produced to finish the building’s façade.

To further reduce costs, their plans call for a system that would collect and recycle the waste within the building itself, so that the actual construction panels would also be made within the skyscraper. Also, the more the building fills up, the quicker new apartments could be added due to the increased volume of recyclable waste being produced.

To construct the building, the designers propose a scaffolding structure for the skyscraper, an idea inspired by the bamboo scaffolding used in Asia. This scaffolding would be all one size and arrive on-site prefabricated and ready for use. The scaffolding would also stay in place even after the building would be completed, and become part of it. The hollow scaffolding tubes would also contain small wind turbines for generating electricity.

The Organic London Skyscraper would be a pyramid shaped building, and the different levels would be accessible via an elevator. The designers also believe that the elevator would provide sufficient access to all the areas of the building and therefore eliminate the need for a tower crane. Apart from the apartment units the design of the building also includes communal areas such as gyms, landings, lobbies, restaurants, bars, conference rooms, along with an observation platform.

Since waste is a prevalent problem in today’s world, the idea for it to be reused as a building material is quite intriguing and definitely worth a consideration.