June 29, 2015
Graduate builds office from beer bottles
An engineering graduate has spent four months and £7,150 building an office from 8500 glass beer bottles.
Li Rongjun, who completed his construction degree at the Inner Mongolia University Of Science & Technology this year, put together the two-storey building on a site that had been deserted for 20 years near his home in China’s home Chongqing municipality.
The building, which is held together with sand, cement and cobblestones, measures 29 square metres, with each storey 2.8 metres high.
One nearby resident is reported to have said: “The building is more beautiful in the evening as it is luminous under the lighting.”
Li plans to improve and expand the office, which he hopes will showcase his skills in order to attract investors and partners to start his own business in construction design.
The idea of building houses out of beer bottles dates back to the 1960s.
While visiting the Caribbean island of Curaçao, Freddy Heineken, then CEO of the Dutch brewing giant, was bothered by the huge piles of rubbish —including his own bottles — and the lack of housing. His solution was to make a beer bottle that could serve as a brick when it’s finished.
Designed by architect John Habraken, about 100,000 brick-shaped bottles were produced. Some were used to build a home near Freddy Heineken’s villa in the Dutch town of Noordwijk, but the bottle never actually made it to market.
Perhaps Li Rongjun’s creation will encourage Heineken to relaunch its square bottles. Or maybe not.
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