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The CO2-absorbing building made of old sinks, windscreens and toilets: Ghent’s £17m design museum is a green marvel

Inspired by a gothic cathedral partly built using human bones, this gleaming monument to recycling boasts 82,000 bricks derived from construction waste – following a two-day brick-making festival Museums often try to reflect the world around them, but rarely are they made so literally of their surroundings as the new design museum in Ghent . Rising above the Belgian city’s medieval tiled rooftops like an angular white watchtower, the new building has vacuumed up the city’s condemned concrete frames, windows, car windscreens, sinks and old toilets, and transformed them, phoenix-like, into a gleaming monument to recycling. “There’s nothing new about reuse,” says Andy Groarke, co-founder of Carmody Groarke , the London-based architects who designed the €20m (£17m) project with local firms Atama and Re-st . “We’ve just forgotten how to do it.” Continue reading...

Image from linked report: The CO2-absorbing building made of old sinks, windscreens and toilets: Ghent’s £17m design museum is a green marvel
Image from the linked report: The CO2-absorbing building made of old sinks, windscreens and toilets: Ghent’s £17m design museum is a green marvel.Credit: The Guardian Thumbnail shown with attribution and outbound source link; VINI does not claim ownership or republish the original article body. Image source External image shown with attribution and an outbound source link; VINI does not claim ownership or republish the original article body.
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Inspired by a gothic cathedral partly built using human bones, this gleaming monument to recycling boasts 82,000 bricks derived from construction waste – following a two-day brick-making festival Museums often try to reflect the world around them, but rarely are they made so literally of their surroundings as the new design museum in Ghent . Rising above the Belgian city’s medieval tiled rooftops like an angular white watchtower, the new building has vacuumed up the city’s condemned concrete frames, windows, car windscreens, sinks and old toilets, and transformed them, phoenix-like, into a gleaming monument to recycling. “There’s nothing new about reuse,” says Andy Groarke, co-founder of Carmody Groarke , the London-based architects who designed the €20m (£17m) project with local firms Atama and Re-st . “We’ve just forgotten how to do it.” Continue reading...

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According to The Guardian’s source item, The CO2-absorbing building made of old sinks, windscreens and toilets: Ghent’s £17m design museum is a green marvel, Inspired by a gothic cathedral partly built using human bones, this gleaming monument to recycling boasts 82,000 bricks derived from construction waste – following a two-day brick-making festival Museums often try to reflect the world around them, but rarely are they made so literally of their surroundings as the new design museum in Ghent . Rising above the Belgian city’s medieval tiled rooftops like an angular white watchtower, the new building has vacuumed up the city’s condemned concrete frames, windows, car windscreens, sinks and old toilets, and transformed them, phoenix-like, into a gleaming monument to recycling. “There’s nothing new about reuse,” says Andy Groarke, co-founder of Carmody Groarke , the London-based architects who designed the €20m (£17m) project with local firms Atama and Re-st . “We’ve just forgotten how to do it.” Continue reading…

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The development sits in VINI’s Culture file for readers following arts, entertainment, fashion, film, music, celebrity, and the business of culture. The original report is linked so readers can check the source account, follow later updates, and compare new coverage against the first published record. The source item is dated 2026-10-20T07:00:19+00:00.

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Primary source: The CO2-absorbing building made of old sinks, windscreens and toilets: Ghent’s £17m design museum is a green marvel via The Guardian. VINI cites and links the source; it does not reproduce the publisher’s full article text without rights clearance.

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