Nathalie Reiz
Concreted — A Distortion of Correspondences

In the Kibag Areal Zurich-Wollishofen, sand and gravel rattle over the conveyor belts, the fine dust of cement is blown through pipes, additives and water are rushing into the concrete mixer. An elegant flowing shapeless grey mass, which will make its way to city. But as elegant as it appears here, as harmful is its impact on our world. Large-scale resource extraction and huge amount of CO2 emissions need us to rethink the future possibility of concrete. Not only is the impact of the production of concrete on our natural habitat evident, also where the material is used, on our construction sites and cities, is the impact severe. It is the building material that reveals the distorted correspondence between the artificial and natural habitat. The Kibag Areal in Zurich Wollishofen is a perfect location to develop a new concrete-recycling facility, and to offer a testing ground for a sustainable future production of concrete. The site profits from new and more environment friendly transportation systems on the lake and railroads, while the plant itself can be a case study for the recycling, storing, and testing of concrete interweaving with the existing concrete production on site. With that the Kibag site becomes a space to negotiate and demonstrate how concrete can again correspond to the habitats it produces.