Robbie Neville was de-nailing some timber when he got the call: he’d won the 2022 Melbourne Design Week Award. “It was an amazing surprise,” says the founder of Revival Projects, a company that has been creatively redirecting waste from construction sites since 2016.
The award recognised Revival Projects’ Zero Footprint Repurposing hub. The 2000-square metre warehouse in Collingwood is where architects, developers, builders and any other interested parties can salvage demolished building materials and store them – free of charge – for use in future projects. Utilised by the likes of Grimshaw Architects, HIP V. HYPE and Assemble Communities, the Zero Footprint Repurposing hub is helping to ensure old bricks, timber and other goods are reused in new builds, rather than going into landfill.
It's hugely significant work; the construction sector is one of the most unsustainable industries on the planet, generating an estimated third of the world’s waste. According to the National Waste Report 2020, Australia alone generated 27 million tonnes of construction and demolition waste in 2018-19.
A year on from the win in March 2022, Robbie has come up with other innovative ways to repurpose waste.
A catalyst for change
Winning the 2022 Melbourne Design Week Award generated a lot of interest in his work. People came down to the Zero Footprint Repurposing hub in Collingwood and visited his building sites – and their responses inspired change.
“They picked through the piles of stuff that I’d said, ‘that is definitely waste. I don't have a use for that.’ And they were like, ‘This is what I need!’” Robbie says.
One ceramicist, Georgia Stevenson, noticed a pile of brick debris and has since shaped it into tableware for use on the same site the debris was salvaged from.
“So from the brick rubble, people will now be drinking their coffee and eating their food on plates that have been crafted into beautiful ceramics by a local maker,” Robbie says.
These experiences helped him see potential in even the most unpromising of materials. But it was Stephy Neville, his wife and the commercial director of their company, who suggested they create an app that would enable people to offload old building materials that would otherwise go to waste.
The app is called Revival Cooperative, and people use it to find a home for everything from 1500 uncleaned red bricks to 50 steel reinforcing rings and a piano. And because no one involved needs to exchange a cent, it’s highly accessible.
“The purity of it is you're literally just giving people a platform to become more resourceful,” he says.
“Within the first three days of going live, there was enough material uploaded to build a house,” Robbie says.
Footing the bill
The app has been used by a diverse range of people (from builders to craft-minded school students) and its reach has surprised even Robbie.
“The reality is there's no marketing budget for it. We announced it on our Instagram, which has a very modest following. And that's it,” he says. “There's no commercial gain for us with the success of the app. There are only environmental gains.”
The Revival Cooperative app and Zero Footprint Repurposing hub are only viable thanks to Robbie’s building and consulting work, and his collaboration partners. There’s little financial incentive – but this is precisely what spurs him on. Commercial pressures often stop people from making greener decisions, and he wants to find ways to combat this.
“The sustainable way might cost more,” he says. “[But] the other side of that coin is things are cheaper, or faster or easier, because the planet foots the bill.”
“We're at this interesting juncture where we're starting to realise the planet can't foot the bill anymore,” Robbie says.
He has applied this mindset to his latest endeavour, too – a tree recovery project dedicated to repurposing trees that are removed from an urban setting. “I'd be hard pressed to think of a more valuable, precious resource,” he says, referring to the greenery that shelters and cools us, and literally keeps us alive.
Robbie took over the warehouse next to the Zero Footprint Repurposing hub and built an inner-city timber mill and kiln to help ensure the trees uprooted from our cities don’t go to waste.
“You don't have to pay us to store your tree, you don't have to pay us to store the timber,” he adds.
Building impact
Robbie’s innovative way of thinking about waste is starting to influence the broader building industry. Developers are now consulting with him on the reuse possibilities of city blocks they’re about to buy. Instead of demolishing a building, there’s care in retaining what’s there – a century-old building is suddenly full of promise.
“Many of the existing resources around our city have been structures for over 100 years, but if we can prepare [them] for re-use again in a matter of minutes, how can it possibly be handled as waste?” he says.
There’s plenty of life in existing resources – and the environment doesn’t have to foot the bill for it.
Mercedes-Benz is proud to be a Major Partner of Melbourne Design Week 2023, presented by the National Gallery of Victoria. Learn more about Melbourne Design Week here.
By Lee Tran Lam