Pedro Reyes
Study for a Recycling Device
2005
Study for a Recycling Device
In Pedro Reyes’s words, “We should be able to extract the technological nutrients before we excrete our waste. There is a missing organ in our social metabolism which would work as a stomach or intestines. ‘The Recyclone’ is a device made of plastic containers that fit into each other. (The plastic boxes are the equivalent to the ‘vellum,’ which are the tiny hairs that stick out from the intestinal wall to absorb nutrients). The permutation of these plastic bins could be customized to satisfy anyone’s recycling needs.” This work offers the possibility of a more visually appealing and adaptable recycling mechanism, assisting in the conscientious extraction of reusable material from industrial products.
Pedro Reyes’s work traverses art, film, architecture, design, social criticism, and pedagogy. Educated as an architect, Reyes draws on this training to engage with utopian aspirations and the ongoing legacy of Modernism, often focusing on issues of scale and space while questioning pressing social issues through the incitement of individual or collective interaction. Although only a few of his works are directly located within the practice of building, almost all involve some kind of construction, whether they are objects, models, interiors, or social spaces. Reyes also makes use of strategies developed for communication or education, as well as everyday humor, to engage his audiences. Many of his works either allow large-scale public engagement or suggest a possible use: weapons turned to shovels, multilevel parks in old modernist buildings, and small spherical rooms. Like many avant-garde thinkers of the past, Reyes constructs forms of architecture necessary for new ways of life.