Founding LSA Alumni team up with Tate Harmer for SMART RECYCLING FACTORY in Germany

Founding LSA alumni, Timm Lindstedt, Aleks Stojakovic and Alexander Frehse have been shortlisted for an innovative smart recycling factory in Minden, Germany.

Aleks Stojakovic and Alexander Frehse, co-founders of Studio 8Fold, along with Timm Lindstedt of  Architekturbüro Lindstedt, have joined forces with Rainer Schmidt Landschaftsarchitekten and LSA Partners Tate Harmer, to work on the project which looks to transform the Pohlsche Heide Waste Management Centre into a hub for waste and recycling innovation, fueling the circular economy.

A Smart Recycling Factory lies at the centre of the scheme and is to become a resource-intelligent innovation centre for recycling management. In doing so, the centre will make use of the variety of natural, mineral and technical raw materials available at the site; (re)processing them using new possibilities and technologies of digitalisation; (re)combining them, putting them back into value and prototypically developing and testing new innovative products.

The proposal from 8Fold, Tater Harmer and co. selectively celebrates and reuses existing structures such as an old weighing station and road infrastructure, as well as the site’s surrounding forests, while also enlarging the existing water retention ponds to create new landscape features. The building materials and spaces themselves are designed to inspire both visitors and staff, and encourage effective collaboration between the future researchers and existing waste management.

“In its entirety, the proposal forms a new arc of awareness, innovation and playful experience, which in the future will be enhanced by exhibiting the benefits and results of a resource-conscious, circular economy,” the architects said.