Rotor is a a cooperative that organises the reuse of construction materials. We dismantle, process and trade salvaged building components.
Rotor DC is a cooperative company which is entirely owned by its employees. We are based in Brussels, and we attempt to be as generous with this city as it is with us. We seek to collaborate with contractors, non-profits and other companies, and to become a central part of a regional ecosystem for large scale reuse of building materials. While at the start in 2014, we almost exclusively sold materials dismantled by our own workers, our shop now also trades materials from several other suppliers such as demolition contractors and real estate companies.
By trading in salvaged materials, we help reduce the quantity of demolition waste, while offering quality building materials that have a negligible environmental impact.
Many of our materials are cheaper than new for the same quality. Some materials are equally expensive as new, but come with a great story, a deep patina or simply a clear conscience. And then, from time to time, we offer for sale pieces that were conceived by renowned designers, or created by skilled craftsmen, or made using technologies now out of reach. These pieces are priced a bit higher, but we hope the economies made with our more generic materials help bring them in reach of the many.
We have a strict policy with regards to exceptional architecture, and never get involved in demolition projects before they obtain the proper permits. We fully support maintenance and refurbishment strategies for existing buildings. We require documentation of ownership on all of the materials that transit through our shop.
While reusing building materials is as old as construction itself, building materials and techniques have significantly evolved since. We develop deconstruction techniques, logistical systems and remanufacturing installations for contemporary building materials, with a focus on finishing materials. Our specialisations include – repair and transformation of lighting equipment, – a state of the art method for removing mortar from ceramic tiles – the reprocessing of high quality ‘urban’ wood – cleaning and preparing for reuse of furniture and building hardware, sanitary equipment – planning and organising of salvage operations in large and complicated buildings
Rotor Deconstruction is an autonomous side-project that emanates from Rotor, a Brussels-based non-profit firm engaged in promoting and facilitating the reuse of building components as a strategy on the path towards a more resource-efficient materials economy. Since 2012, Rotor has been documenting existing dealers of secondhand building materials in Belgium and in neighbouring countries. The results are published on opalis.eu. Through this study, we realised that despite the high level of professionalisation of the sector, many dealers are focusing on rustic materials destined for the domestic rural market. Few were geared towards selling what comes out of large building compounds of the service sector, which then and now makes up the bulk of demolition debris in metropolitan areas like the Brussels Region. Rotor Deconstruction grew out of the realisation that certain dots needed urgent connection.
photo: Rotor DC, WTC towers, Brussels
photo: Rotor DC, North Station, Brussels
photo: Rotor DC, warehouse