De Volkskrant: ‘Oud spul, nieuwe stijl’
January 2026
In de Volkskrant, Kirsten Hannema wrote an extensive article about the developing aesthetics of reuse, featuring Superuse, bureau SLA, Popma ter Steege Architecten, and MOR Studio, among others. It is interesting to read that architects are seeking new aesthetic values in so many different ways through reuse – and how to reconcile these with ecological values.
“Architect Floris Schiferli […] ‘had little interest in reuse’, calling it Mad Max architecture, after the 1979 science fiction film, which revolves around the reuse of everything the post-apocalyptic world has to offer. That opinion changed, says Schiferli, when he applied for a job at Superuse in 2009. The firm, which has been pioneering circular construction since 1997, had just completed its first residential house in Enschede, made with steel beams from a paternoster lift and wooden cable reels from a nearby textile factory. ‘It was a modernist villa’ says Schiferli. ‘Suddenly I saw that sustainable construction can produce a sleek look.’ And just as there is beauty in the perfect cycles of nature, Schiferli discovered that you can also find it in the design of a closed-loop material cycle in construction.”
“Superuse Studios also acts as a materials broker. For example, it supplied the waste materials for the circular Villa Residu in Rotterdam, designed by V8 architects. Except for the foundations, the building was constructed using recycled wood, steel and concrete. The façades are clad with profiled steel sheets that have been sprayed green. The whole building looks like a shiny block of jade; there is nothing to indicate that these are second-hand materials.”
Read the full article via de Volkskrant.
