An Urban Sink: Case Study of an (Im)material Metabolism of Buildings

Reducing material consumption necessitates a radical conception of the urban environ-ment as a “sink” for building materials, following the notion of “safe sink” from chemical engineering. In architecture, this means being able to describe the tectonic correspondence between material consequences (how architecture moves material between society and na-ture) and immaterial consequences (how architecture moves human experience and be-havior). As part of an ongoing doctoral study, this paper studies this correspondence in a case study exploring 5 constructs (sub-unit). Hence, the case study explores the tectonic correspondence between the immaterial capacities (experiential, phenomenological) of ar-chitecture and how they affect material flows (waste generation through renovation, dem-olition etc.) in three selected Danish low-dense housing developments. In conclusion, the paper discusses whether/how these immaterial capacities can become active design strate-gies for slowing material flows towards a conception of buildings as parts of a safe Urban Sink