An ancient building technique known as Cyclopean masonry could help today's architects design modern structures by using material waste.
The Cannibal's Cookbook, an architectural handbook produced by architects at Matter Design, suggests that cities should cannibalize themselves by "[consuming] the rubble of old building stock to provide new structures" so that their materials are carefully reused, not thrown into landfills.
The long-standing technique of Cyclopean masonry can be traced back to ancient civilizations across the globe.
Enormous blocks of stone were fit together without being cut or secured by any binding material which, in turn, reduced weak points in the walls.
Cyclopean masonry gets its name from legends of the ancient Mycenaean Greeks, whose boulder walls were said to have been created by cyclops, the "only creatures strong enough" to move such heavy boulders.
In a similar fashion, walls constructed with smaller rocks are typically known as "dry stone walls," in which builders collected stones from the surrounding countryside that could be placed in an interlocking formation.
By using nothing but the stones in their area, these walls formed resilient, self-supporting structures with completely natural, local resources.
Today, we see more buildings constructed with manmade materials like concrete, which is not only widely used, but also may be incredibly "destructive."
Concrete production accounts for 8% of the world's carbon pollution, uses up 10% of all industrial water, and warms up the earth even more by absorbing heat from the sun.
By utilizing the remnants of old buildings in a more earth-conscious manner, we can cut down on the 4.4 billion tons of concrete produced each year and create a cooler, cleaner planet for us all.
Architectural projects using Cyclopean masonry are already in the works, such as Italian architect Nicolás Delgado Álcega's work to restore agricultural terraces in the rural community of Vallecorsa.
Although we likely won't be seeing any dry rock skyscrapers anytime soon, simpler structures like walls and walkways could be built with landfill-bound rubble, which would pose a highly sustainable solution for the world's concrete waste problem.
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