How Smart Are Our Streets?


Research
Boorloo
2019




Material Practice
Lutruwita
Nov 2025


Sand, Silt, Clay
Lutruwita
Oct 2025


Re-Form Initiative


Research
Boorloo
2019



Material Research
Collaborator: Felix Joensson
St Marys
2026 A reclamation audit identifies the reuse potential of a project, particularly for buildings scheduled for partial or total demolition. We visit the site to identify materials and elements with a high reuse potential, photographing and measuring components and assessing their condition. Everything is documented and catalogued in a detailed audit, graded from most to least reuse potential, so we know exactly what can be reused or reclaimed.

Logic of Deconstruction:
1. Interior loose furnishings
2. Cabinetry
3. Doors and windows
4. Interior linings
5. Exterior linings
6. Structure

The audit is carried out during the pre-design stage, so the resulting inventory can guide the building and site design from the outset. Working this way reduces waste and embodied carbon, and has the potential to lower costs compared with sourcing new materials. This is a practical tool with potential to significantly reduce the environmental impact of the building.



Materials available on the site: reclaimed timber and stone from a dismantled extension to the existing cabin.


Material idenification and mapping process






In a remote corner on the north east coast of Lutriwita/Tasmania, we’ve been carrying out a contextual survey – identifying materials available from the site and local bio-region (sandstone, granite, timber, clay) and reclaiming and repurposing waste materials from local demolition and de-fit projects (zincalume, reclaimed timber, crushed concrete).

As we assemble and test this array of low cost, low-carbon, and readily available materials, we are also prototyping construction details that can be effectively realised in a remote location with simple tools and methods. Through this R&D project we are trying to show how architecture can help us dwell more simply, in ways that are more connected to place.  








Our first days of testing as we prepare for a prototype research-and-development project testing unstabilised mudbrick construction. Here, we are taking advantage of extensive clay deposits on site and a regenerative supply of dried lomandra grasses to add tensile strength. Our low-tech sedimentation tests carried out on site gave us a valuable first insight into the compositional soil breakdown into sand, silt, and clay. 

Next up — making bricks… lots of bricks.













Design-research consultancy
Collaborators: Linh Dinh, Guy Eddington, 
Tyran Hanlon, Nic Kotsoglo
Boorloo
2019
Engaged by a Western Australian non-profit waste agency, we worked with our IDRL collaborators to investigate potential uses for post-consumer plastic waste in product development by following circular design principles. Following iterative rounds of design-research and prototyping we proposed a low-tech and practical framework of processes, principles, and prototypes for designing with and for recycled thermoplastic filament. Outcomes of this project were fundamental to ongoing successful community engagement programs supporting the waste reduction and recycling sectors in Western Australia.










Design-research consultancy
Boorloo
2019
In our role with the Industrial Design Research Lab (IDRL) we were engaged by Australian manufacturing industry client looking to identify opportunities in the ‘smart’ tech-enabled street furniture sector. Following a comprehensive analysis of existing solutions we deployed our unique design-research process to propose an integrated product-service system offering. 

By prioritising ethical and socially sustainable strategies for integrating technology into public spaces we designed a modular system-based solution following design-for-disassembly principles [to read more about the potential outcomes of tech-integrated products, see our thought-leadership piece here:

https://theconversation.com/technology-is-making-cities-smart-but-its-also-costing-the-environment-99296]