Texas A&M Students Create Building Envelope Designs from GM Manufacturing Scrap

Andy Mangan, executive director, U.S. Business Council for Sustainable Development, and Ryan Jones, associate partner of Lake|Flato Architects were members of the design jury. (Photo credit)

Story reposted from General Motors Green:

General Motors thinks of waste as a resource out of place. To help make the zero-waste mindset more mainstream, the company engages others in its mission, including students. Most recently it was Texas A&M University’s College of Architecture helping reimagine waste materials to keep them in use.   

The students’ assignment was to design the Houston Museum of Waste, an imaginary 27,000-square-foot museum. As in many projects, there was a challenge. They had to incorporate offal – a galvanized piece of thin sheet metal left over when stamping out car parts – within the building’s physical separation of its interior and exterior. This variable encouraged students to provide a novel solution to design a building envelope using byproducts from the manufacturing industry.

The jury committee included experts and professionals from GM; U.S. Business Council for Sustainable Development; Zahner; Lake|Flato Architects; and Corgan Associates. The jury credited the winner, Yingzhe Duan, for her use of offal in a functional, practical and replicable way. Yingzhe’s museum proposal delivered an airy, translucent appearance thanks to its simple, open floor plan, glass walls and an interior shading system made from offal sheet metal. Read more...