Public Works has built a water-heating system powered by compost that warms a bench at the Oslo Architecture Triennale to demonstrate the potential of the system.
The system, named Power Plant(s)!, has been developed by Public Works in collaboration with Oslo School of Architecture students and Flakk/Dalziel to promote the use of waste as a viable alternative to fossil fuels for heating.
It responds to the Oslo Architecture Triennale's theme of degrowth ? an economic strategy that believes in the downscaling of production and consumption ? and is hoped to simultaneously raise awareness about the unsustainable amount of waste produced by humans.
Power Plant(s)! uses compost to heat a bench
"Waste is one of the fundamental outputs of 'growth'. As a society we spend a huge amount of money and energy trying to make our waste disappear and pretend it does not happen," said Tom Dobson, project lead at Public Works. "We also spend a huge amount of energy and money extracting fossil fuel to create heat which brings a whole new set environmental issues entwined with growth," he told Dezeen.
"This project illustrates how we can create a closed loop waste-to-energy systems using nature based solutions."
Heat is transferred directly from the cylindrical composing container to the bench
The team developed Power Plant(s)! as a small-scale prototype to demonstrate how the technology can be utilised.
"If you can heat a bench, you can heat a house," e...