Installation — Martin Place, March 2026
IN SITU
Photography: Ben Berwick / Sepa Sema
Martin Place, Sydney · Climate Action Week 2026
A monument to construction waste — and a provocation for systemic change in NSW's building industry.
tonnes of construction waste generated in Sydney every year — 15× more than all households combined.
01 — Project Overview
Most research on circular construction references European and UK precedents — underpinned by policy settings, procurement frameworks, and construction cultures that differ significantly from Australia's. This project responds to that gap.
Led by Arch_Manu, the ARC Centre for Next-Generation Architectural Manufacturing at UNSW, the project investigates how circular economy principles can be practically embedded within Sydney's construction industry.
The research was informed through focus group interviews addressing both systemic challenges — policy, liability, certification, cost and risk — and practical opportunities including reuse networks, prefabrication, adaptive detailing, and waste-stream coordination.
Focus group interviews with Architecture, Engineering and Construction professionals. October – November 2025.
Interview notes reviewed, anonymised, and synthesised into actionable industry insights. Published as a continuing professional development resource. December 2025.
A temporary public pavilion constructed from construction waste materials, installed in Martin Place during Climate Action Week Sydney. March 9–15, 2026.
Supported by the City of Sydney and Climate Action Week Sydney 2026.
02 — By the Numbers
Construction and demolition waste dwarfs every other waste stream in NSW. The numbers are confronting — and almost entirely avoidable with systemic change.
Tonnes of construction waste generated in Sydney every year
Climate Action Week Sydney, 2026
More than all Sydney households produce annually combined
UNSW Arch_Manu research
Of demolition waste already diverted from landfill — but mostly downcycled, not truly circular
Industry interviews, 2025
More expensive: precast vertical elements vs in-situ construction in Sydney in 2025
Industry interviews, 2025
"Expecting circular outcomes to be delivered on live construction sites is unrealistic without systemic change in NSW."
Construction Industry Interview Respondent — NSW, 2025
03 — Industry Findings
Focus group interviews were conducted with Architecture, Engineering and Construction professionals across large, medium and small enterprises. Interview were recorded and transcripts anonymised as per UNSW ethical guidelines.
Commercial office fit-out churn is a major, systemic waste stream. The warm-shell → tenant rips out → landlord reinstates → next tenant rips out cycle is driven by leasing standards and valuation/tax settings — not technical necessity.
Australia's core circular economy barrier is commercial and contractual risk, not technical feasibility. No party wants to sign off on compliance, warranty, or unknowns on reused materials — so risk premiums load in, then clients reject the cost.
A lot of waste is created by everyday site practices — concrete pump washouts, temporary protection, shop-drawing inefficiencies. Tightening logistics and standard practices could deliver big cumulative reductions with minimal system change.
Circularity only happens when contractually mandated or explicitly client-funded. Industry ideas include: tax/depreciation reforms for reused materials, removing GST, carbon tax/manufacturer take-back models, insurance settings — create the incentives and industry will optimise.
Separating waste on-site is spatially and operationally unviable with 10–15 trades working concurrently. Large projects generate 2–3 skips per day at peak. Effective recycling must occur offsite at waste facilities, not through on-site separation.
Education is an underused lever. Better trade training to reduce routine material wastage — plasterboard cutting, handling, installation — could produce large reductions with minimal system change. Including trades in ECI processes would be transformative.
04 — Key Waste Streams
Interviews consistently identified the same material categories as problematic. Each has a different profile of volume, value, current practice, and opportunity for change.
The #1 fitout waste stream. Offcuts are generated because designs are not aligned to standard sheet sizes, and damage during handling means whole sheets are routinely discarded. No current reuse pathway exists on busy sites — no space, no manpower, no economic incentive.
Curtain walls are difficult to segregate for recycling — glass, aluminium, and gaskets are mixed — so they often go to landfill. Reuse of unitised panels is theoretically possible but blocked by warranty, condition assurance, and market matching.
Corflute, plastic wrapping, pallets, plastic films on windows and ducts, floor protection — a constant flow of high-volume, low-value waste. Not measured, not accounted for, and rarely recovered because it arrives contaminated and fragmented.
Plywood and sawn timber boundary hoarding is technically recyclable, but there is no systematic regulated recycling requirement for temporary timber on NSW sites — so it's not reliably separated or recycled by default. Community reuse groups absorb some, the rest is mulched.
Reuse is most viable where performance and warranty expectations are lower. Fit-outs and interior elements — furniture, joinery, benchtops, feature installations — are near-term opportunities. Clients currently do this mainly for environmental reasons, not cost savings.
The largest waste streams by volume. Both are commercially incentivised to recycle — landfill is expensive enough to make extraction and crushing worth doing. However, crushing concrete for rubble or extracting rebar is downcycling, not circular reuse at equivalent function.
"While Sydney households generate 64,000 tonnes of waste annually, the local construction sector dwarfs this figure with over 1 million tonnes every year. Much of this comes from the mind-boggling cycle of commercial fit-out churn, where perfectly viable interiors are stripped and landfilled due to leasing standards rather than technical necessity."
Climate Action Week Sydney — Official Event Description, 2026
"What we call construction waste is often just material without time."
Annabel Koeck — ScaleRule.Org · Hassell Principal
05 — The Demonstrator Project
Exhibition Details
Shattered Topography: A Monument to Waste
Martin Place, Sydney · Between Castlereagh & Elizabeth
Streets
Tuesday 10 March – Wednesday 11 March, 2026
The installation is constructed entirely from waste plasterboard collected from two Sydney construction sites in a day — material that would otherwise be sent directly to landfill.
Pre-assembled into 1-metre lengths of 400mm-high sections, the installation aggregates this material in a highly visible public setting. It quantifies and exposes the scale of plasterboard waste generated by contemporary construction practices.
Plasterboard is a ubiquitous, low-cost material routinely specified for high-turnover commercial fit-outs, despite not being designed for disassembly or reuse. Its sheets are even stamped "Manufactured for Life" — a bitter irony when they arrive in skips within months of installation.
The installation stands as a silent protest against "smash and sort" demolition and issues a bold call to action: it is time for a moratorium on demolition.
A 30mm monumental line across Martin Place's 35m × 15m footprint — made up of repeatable units that collectively embody the scale of the problem creating a single sculptural object.
Made up of hundreds of plasterboard shards, the line builds into a whole from the sum of its parts, producing a practical construction safe for public pedestrian environment.
Much of the plasterboard shards on display remains structurally sound. The installation forces the public to confront what "waste" actually means — and what it could still be.
The pavilion surfaces real regulatory constraints — waste classifications, registrations, compliance pathways, storage, environmental regulations.
Installation Materials — All Collected from Sydney Construction Sites
Offcuts and damaged sheets collected from two Sydney construction sites in a day. Structurally sound material discarded due to economic and logistical pressures rather than actual material failure.
Plywood and sawn timber from perimeter hoardings — technically recyclable but with no systematic recovery requirement in NSW, making each piece a demonstration of a regulatory gap.
Corflute and plastic wrapping from floor and wall protection. High-volume, low-value, routinely contaminated. Not measured during construction — and therefore never managed.
Installation — Martin Place, March 2026
Photography: Ben Berwick / Sepa Sema
06 — What Needs to Change
The findings are clear. The industry knows what to do. What's missing is the policy environment, procurement reform, and willingness to be first. Three things need to change — now.
