Plastic waste pop-up pavilion rethinks recycling in the Netherlands

Plastic waste takes on new life in the PET Pavilion, a temporary structure that popped up in a public park in Enschede, The Netherlands.

Project.DWG and LOOS.FM designed the 227-square-meter ephemeral pavilion to spark dialogue on topics relating to recycling and sustainable building. The experimental pavilion serves as an educational gathering space and can be easily dismantled for relocation within a day.

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The pavilion bears draws inspiration from Ludwig Mies van der Rohe’s Farnsworth House with its steel framework and floor-to-ceiling transparent walls. Over 40,000 plastic bottles are sandwiched between the pavilion’s double-walled transparent corrugated sheets, creating a curtain of crumpled bottles that turn the pavilion into an “abstract lantern” at night. The elevated pavilion also includes a staircase and ramp covered with 25,000 bottle caps and a divider wall filled with 8,000 body wash containers.

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“It is really confronting when you encounter the huge piles of waste up close,” write the designers. “That’s something we wanted to work with. ‘Something’ became a pavilion with monumental walls of pet bottles. Dismountable and temporary, with the plot in loan. With a temporary structure you bypass complicated regulation. Society is changing. To build for eternity, is an empty claim. Temporality means freedom.”

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The PET pavilion is currently located in a temporary park on the grounds of the former Robson pajamas in Enschede. The building is used to host events, from talks to galleries, and also includes a bar and winter garden. The pavilion will be moved to an as yet undetermined site at the end of 2017.