Building a nomadic pavilion out of old skis

Could recovered materials play a key role in tomorrow's civil engineering' EPFL researchers set out to answer that question by creating an easily demountable pavilion out of more than 200 reclaimed skis. Is there a middle road between producing new materials and recycling them? You bet - reusing them! Researchers at the smart living lab in Fribourg came up with a slightly off-the-wall project based on the idea that the stuff we throw away could be the makings of sustainable construction. Guided by this concept, the researchers collected hundreds of old skis, whose mechanical properties proved ideal for building a collapsible pavilion. "In the construction industry, talk about sustainable building usually revolves around insulation, energy efficiency, materials, recycling and biodegradation,' says Corentin Fivet, who heads EPFL's Structural Xploration Laboratory (SXL). 'But recycling is expensive and biodegradation is not always a feasible option. Another way to avoid producing new materials and use less energy is to repurpose materials as they are." We need more research on the topic before ensuring its feasibility. But it could, for example, be paired with other existing building methods.