In San Antonio, Texas the Material Innovation Center works with contractors, reuse stores, and corporate donors to take in excess woodwork, windows, lumber, siding and other materials after buildings get demolished. This material gets channeled toward affordable housing.
Another outfit, Reuse Innovation Center, is based in Bellingham, Washington, and services the Pacific Northwest.
Dave Bennink of the Circular Construction Network and Building Deconstruction Institute has shared plans to build the New York City Reuse Innovation Center, what Bennink says will become a “center of circular construction.” It will be located in Brooklyn and will contain a “reusable building material store, a showroom, classroom, and a collaborative maker/remanufacturing space. Bennink is looking for businesses who’d like to move into the space and synergistically work “towards circularity in the built environment.”
“The Reuse Innovation Center will be a circular business cooperative with, say, around 15 to 20 businesses all working together in a synergistic way toward building a circular economy in the built environment,” Bennink said. “So we’ll have businesses that take buildings apartment, and we’ll have businesses that put buildings back together. We’ll have businesses that make products for buildings that are circular in nature, made of reclaimed and recycled content.”
Bennink said that he’s now looking for a large place that will provide the opportunity to charge affordable rents to businesses looking to get involved. This will save businesses the hassle of renting their own space, and their own equipment. In turn, the Resource Center will pool together resources and tools, while also placing like-minded business owners in proximity to one another, creating knowledge spillovers.
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