Sumer Erek’s newspaper house puts excess newsprint to good use

29 February 2008

About 1.7 million free newspapers are printed daily in London, and as anyone working in the capital knows, no sooner are they distributed, far too many end up littering streets, tubes and buses. From this waste and mess come two art projects which aim to raise awareness of the issue by creating public structures of discarded handouts.

The first, which begins on site next week in Dalston, north-east London, is the work of artist Sumer Erek with Schenk Perfler Architects. It will create a shelter using 150,000 old newspapers donated by the public.

“It’s a conceptual work we hope will raise many questions of awareness in terms of our environment, cities, waste, recycling, and our relationship with our private space as a house,” says Erek, who was commissioned by newcomer arts body Creative City.

“The material is a key, fundamental part of the project. It works in three ways,” he explains. “‘News’ defines our era, ‘information technology’ is the dominating part of our existence. ‘Paper’ makes a direct relationship with our environment, and ‘house’ ties all the things together.”

The construction of the £25,000 Newspaper House will be a “live” installation over five days in Gillett Square. Anyone can participate — providing they bring along old newspapers and are willing to get their hands dirty. A 5m by 4m structure of plywood panels will provide the house’s framework.

Rain stops play

“In the very beginning, the house was to be created only from newspaper, without any other construction material,” says Gesa Schenk, director at Schenk Perfler. “But we quickly realised that there were a couple of issues that might be problematic. For instance, if it rained, it would collapse.”

Operating like a production line, visitors will be able to write their own personal messages on the paper, which will then be rolled into sticks and sealed. Several sticks will be tied together to form “trunks” or bundles, and these will be pushed against the plywood frame from the inside to flesh out the structure. If it does rain, a temporary tarpaulin shelter will be erected.

Erek is passionate about the impact of waste on society, and hopes that his installation will prompt more debate.

“We are losing the space we live, work and function in. We are filling it up with our waste,” he says. “There is a very direct relationship with the meaning of the Newspaper House — it’s a dwelling, a social space, a sanctuary. While building the house, you’re losing the house. The concept has a very paradoxical meaning.”

By transforming the paper metaphorically into logs, Erek hopes to establish a relationship between ideas of private and public space. “A private space becomes public when you engage others,” he says.

Erek is not the only creative exploring such timely questions on the subject of waste paper. Architectural practice and radio show Amenity Space (Culture January 25) is planning to build a 3m shelter in July using a pile of Ordnance Survey maps left over from last year’s Architecture Week. The 30,000 maps of London were never distributed as London Underground pulled out of the event — ironically because of concerns about waste.

Space for waste

“Wasting tonnes of paper each day is a hot topic at the moment,” says Tony Broomhead, architect and partner at Amenity Space. “Paper is being used for all sorts of construction, for insulation and building blocks. Many developing countries are pulping it and using it as a building material.”

Amenity Space has come up with an ingenious way of compressing 12,000 of the maps to form 1m by 1m thermally efficient, structurally sound building blocks, which will be fixed to a timber and steel frame. The shelter will be sited in a rural location in the Peak District this July for two months, and Broomhead says the firm is already negotiating with H-I Arts to construct a permanent paper shelter in the Scottish Highlands.

In the meantime, the public can take part in the Dalston installation from next Monday. The completed work will be unveiled at 2pm on March 8, when Erek will remove the external panels to reveal the newspaper house within.

Newspaper House

By Sumer Erek

Gillett Square, Dalston, north-east London

www.newspaperhouse.blogspot.com

Construction from March 3 to 9

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