Evelyn Ågren
cand.arch

Urban Scavenger

Mobile Repair Workshop Prototype

Arkitektskolen Aarhus, Denmark
Research Assistant

The scavengers of the world have long been collectors, gathering refuse and giving it a new purpose. The Urban Scavenger explores a different kind of scavenging, revaluing unwanted materials through the development of a typology for a mobile repair workshop. A work of salvage in form and function, this assemblage of debris drives through cities, collecting discarded matter and repurposing it to develop a practice of care. Workshops are hosted where people can access the knowledge and tools necessary to repair their own objects, continuing the cycle of salvage.

This research explores materials defining design as a means of showcasing new potentials in construction offcuts, debris, or scraps. There is a current tendency for architects to romanticise ideas of reuse, as found in the concept of the bricoleur; what was once a position of gritty determination and necessity has been redefined as an artistic endeavour. A pragmatic approach, born of the materials-at-hand, disrupts the current discourse that defines materials as secondary to the concept, repositioning the value of discarded materials.


 

Through the design process, the material properties challenge current ideals of aesthetics and influence tectonic decisions.  By studying abstract interdisciplinary inquiries into waste alongside the practical applications, the piece seeks to exchange the positioning of these materials from undesirable instead to integral within architectural practice.