The Royal Academy's Material Shop stocked with New Waste

THE UPCYCL delivers New Waste materials to the Royal Danish Academy in Copenhagen, which has established a material center on the Holmen campus. New Waste materials are materials in the form of off-cuts, die-cuts or other new and unused material left over or left over from industry sourced by THE UPCYCL's team. 

These materials are ideal for use by future designers and architects as, in addition to not having been used before, they are uniform, continuous and of the same quality as normal. By virtue of the Academy's circular approach to material procurement, architecture and design students will now have the opportunity to work with industrial waste materials in their future projects.

The range of materials for the students is made possible in collaboration with a large number of THE UPCYCL's member companies, who together supply materials to the Royal Academy. THE UPCYCL has sourced wood from VTI and pfp and steel from Ravendo, Venti and Jevi. In addition, we have also found foam from AnnTex, acrylic from Stoko Plast and rubber cork and cardboard from Betech, which can also be found in the material bank. Once again, THE UPCYCL's members are supporting the sustainable use of resources in the future, and since the collaboration involves so many member companies, it is a clear indication that we can only be circular together.

The purpose of the material center is that the students at the Royal Academy can use New Waste residual materials for their prototypes and graduation projects, and thereby focus on reducing the Academy's consumption of virgin materials. In the education of future designers and architects, it is essential that they learn to work with the premise of the limitations of the materials of the future. In the work to use materials created from the Earth's precious resources, we must increasingly take materials from the piles of already produced materials and increase the utilization of what has already been produced. By using materials from this pile, we also ensure a circular value chain by using materials that are surplus from industrial production. The Royal Academy and the students are extremely brave when they take the lead and see opportunities instead of limitations in the residual materials.

Even the environment for the materials is created with a circular focus

The collection of New Waste materials is housed in a purpose-built building on Campus Holmen, called Material Central. The building designed by architect Freja Exner and the facades of circular materials from a:gain were designed and built by 40 master students from the School of Architecture and Technology and four graduates from the School of Architecture and Culture. 

The Materials Bank at the Royal Academy opened to students on Monday, October 24th at an opening ceremony for curious students and collaborators. Read more about the sustainable material center on the Royal Academy's website here.

If you also see opportunities to implement New Waste materials for your educational institution, please contact us at [email protected]and we will look at the possibilities together to establish a New Waste material bank.

You can find inspiration on what materials to include in your bank in our New Waste material exchange.

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