The Gerrit Rietveld Academie and the Sandbergh Institute are expanding in the coming years. A competition was held and Fedlev, the winning team, sees the new construction as an opportunity for (former) students to get involved. Studio Elmo Vermijs was invited to analyze the waste streams and to develop a vision to integrate awareness and use of waste streams into the educational program.

RESEARCH

Three paths are set out. The first is waste, knowledge and education. An analysis was made of all waste streams (waste, water and energy) per student per academic year. This gave clear insight how much waste a student produces per year to study. The amount of cubic meters has increased considerably in recent years. The second is an inventory of the canteen and workshops with a focus on waste, water and energy, and knowledge about tools, material and production techniques.

LOCAL WASTESTREAMS

The third inventories potential parties that produce waste materials in the vicinity of the academy. These rest materials could be made available through an app, as result, students would virtually not need to buy new materials.

VISION

This analysis shows where the opportunities are and how education can raise awareness. This presents a chance for the Rietveld Academie and the Sandbergh institute to become the first art schools in the Netherlands to use waste streams and to use education to research the opportunities through radical and structural experimentation. It could be a starting point for a new type of assignments, instead of a problem that needs to be solved afterwards, which, unfortunately, is still the case today.