On the 20th of august, FCRBE celebrated a working session for the development of an open source and accessible method for auditing reusable elements in a building. We discovered Bellastock’s Actlab, a project in L'Île-Saint-Denis near Paris.
Actlab is situated on a large worksite, that of the « Fluvial Eco-district » on the Ile-Saint-Denis. Bellastock's project consisted in using part of the available space to store reusable materials from the deconstruction site. These materials are then restored or rebuilt and are part of a number of activities and projects in the neighbourhood, creating a link between residents and workplaces. Actlab is a real experimental laboratory for reuse in architecture and landscape, dedicated to learning through practice, pedagogy, self-building and cultural openness in the workplace.
Since 2012, several buildings and infrastructure have been built on site, always aiming to experiment with reuse or testing new ideas and concepts. During our visit, we had an overview of the base camp building, entirely built with reuse materials. The community garden was accessible to neighbours and dressed with upcycled furniture. There was a workshop room for storage and prototyping, a test pavilion to experiment with different soil and straw treatment techniques, and a prototype paving slab made from pieces of recovered concrete, among other features.
