Other projects have a more sleek, sophisticated sensibility. A house outside of Boston, assembled from a steel overpass, concrete slabs, and other elements salvaged from that city’s “Big Dig”, looks strikingly contemporary, as if it were built from scratch.  An observation station atop a hill in the Chilean countryside, built entirely from waste lumber, has a stark serenity.
     Surprisingly, many waste materials sit beautifully within the landscape. The property wall at a recycling company in Lithuania is built from discarded refrigerator bodies. It’s a surreal juxtaposition, these rows of rusted-out appliances running across a green meadow, that somehow feels just right. The bangs and dents in the refrigerator shells give the entire structure an organic, honeycomb-like feeling.
     Building with waste requires some adjustments in the design process. Rather than searching for materials with which to build an idea, designers are looking to waste materials to suggest new ways to build. At the same time there’s another, more fundamental shift in our own minds, as we learn to see what we’re about to throw away as valuable raw material. We’ve got to treasure our trash.