Beer Bottles Used a Bricks by Heineken

In past issues, we mentioned Columbian architect Oscar Andres Mendez and his company Conceptos Plasticos with which he recycled plastic and produced bricks to make shelters for the homeless. This project still continues today. Another example of using industrial waste as bricks can be found in Amsterdam at the Heineken Museum.

He even had a garden-house built in his
own garden out of WOBO bottles. It was
later considered a phase and the project
quietened down.

Alfred Heineken travelled to the Caribbean Islands during the 1960s and was surprised with the amount of rubbish on the island especially because most of it was Heineken beer bottles so he starts to think of ways to reuse them.

Heineken becomes obsessed with finding a solution to the housing problem on the island and approached the architect John Habraken, director of the Foundation for Architects’ Research (SAR) with the idea of designing a re-usable bottle that could serve as a building block after use.

Habreken designs a bottle that could be used as a building block but the design did not look like Heineken’s classic bottle. Habraken’s second design was the WOBO bottle which we now today. It as a bottle with flat sides and has a concave bottom making it easy to connect with another bottle.

It as a bottle with flat sides
and has a concave bottom
making it easy to connect
with another bottle.

In 1964 Heineken had these bottles made at his factory in Leerdam. He even had a garden-house built in his own garden out of WOBO bottles. It was later considered a phase and the project quietened down.

10 years later British critic and professor of architecture and design, Martin Pawley published a book named “Garbage Housing” and featured Heineken’s WOBO garden-house on the cover. He wrote that The WOBO was now seen as the first industrial initiative to develop recyclable packaging resulting in the idea of constructing a building completely out of WOBO on the site of the Technical University Eindhoven. Unfortunately, the building was not constructed because the administrators of the University and Alfred Heineken were unable to come to an agreement.

Today, a wall made of WOBO is exhibited at the Heineken Museum in Amsterdam as the only structure made from these bricks. But the idea of using industrial waste products as building blocks can be seen although years have passed since this first idea came about.