Abstract

This paper constructs an alternative history of wood in Leuven (Belgium) to help contextualize the city’s contemporary project for a building materials bank as part of their larger efforts to make the urban metabolism more circular. Focusing on the history of Leuven’s forests, canal, and deconstruction practices, this paper aims to show how the materials bank will also intervene into the larger overlapping timber flows of the region. By analysing how (circular) wood flows were strongly intertwined with urban and landscape development projects in pre-industrial Leuven, the paper speculates on how the materials bank could revitalize broken spatial connections towards more circular timber flows in Leuven, while catalysing circular urban landscape and infrastructure development. It shifts focus from a materials bank as a circular waste management response “redirecting” wood waste flows to an integrated infrastructural question addressing path dependencies in the wood extraction, processing, consumption and disposal chain.

摘要

本文构建了鲁汶（比利时）木材的另类历史，以帮助将这座城市的当代建筑材料银行项目置于背景下，作为他们使城市新陈代谢更加循环的更大努力的一部分。本文着眼于鲁汶的森林、运河和解构实践的历史，旨在展示材料库将如何干预该地区更大的重叠木材流。通过分析（圆形）木材流如何与工业化前鲁汶的城市和景观开发项目密切相关，本文推测材料库如何重振鲁汶破碎的空间连接，以实现更多的圆形木材流，同时促进圆形城市景观和基础设施发展。