This pop-up experience explores demolition material at its origin – a gutted Manhattan loft apartment temporarily transformed into a gallery showcasing all the detritus from its renovation.  

Over 400 people visited DEMO-DEMO in October, including tours offered as part of Open House NY.

Demo-Demo was featured in this Gothamist article as well as in this clip on the local TV News Channel 11 WPIX.

We are making a documentary film. For a sneak video preview, click HERE.

Demo-Demo is an act of resistance – a demonstration – against conventional construction cycles of disposal and acquisition, hitting the pause button post-demolition to examine this material for its latent potential.

Guests will wander among artfully arranged piles and stacks of demolished wallboard, electrical conduit, plumbing parts, insulation, windows, cabinets and other materials.  This interaction exposes the challenges and possibilities with this material.  It will titallate both voyeurs (think ruin porn) and designers looking for inspiration. 

Is there another fate for this material besides eternity in a landfill?  Can some of this stuff be repurposed into something wonderful?

The Back-Story:

Buildings are responsible for half of the carbon emissions influencing climate change.   Designers have made great strides in reducing buildings’ “operating energy” by adopting energy-saving strategies (efficient appliances, solar panels, minimizing thermal leakage in envelope designs, etc.).  The new frontier is exploring strategies to minimize the embodied energy of a building’s materials.  Re-using existing material can dramatically reduce the carbon footprint of new construction.

Simultaneously, cities are adopting zero landfill objectives – New York City’s goal is zero waste to landfills by 2030.  Construction/demolition debris comprises 60% of the material headed to NYC’s landfills.  The sheer bulk of detritus from this apartment renovation is impressive, demonstrating the magnitude of this challenge.

Opening for one week only in early October, Demo-Demo is intended to bring attention to both issues.  Can we mitigate our landfill problem while minimizing embodied energy of our buildings?

Demolition was completed in August 2018.

The apartment was gutted to reveal its original configuration as a light manufacturing facility in the garment district.

DEMO-DEMO was open for one week in mid-October, 2018.

All 36 tons of construction detritus were transformed into sculptures installed in the newly gutted space. The potential of this material was explored through 32 different installations.

These installations have now been dismantled. Some material was set aside for re-use in the renovation of the loft apartment, some sent to a re-use center for resale, and the rest sent to a construction / demolition material recycling center.