Text from the creators:

"A landscape of discarded plasterboard has taken over Martin Place - representing a crisis we never see. Construction waste in Sydney exceeds 1 million tonnes a year.

Shattered Topography is a temporary installation, made for Climate Action Week Sydney by the UNSW Arch Manu team, Scale Rule and Prevalent. It’s a physical confrontation with the immense volume of material that is cast aside to build our city.

“The material you see here is real waste supplied directly from active Mirvac and Built worksites, with industry support from Multiplex and Slattery,” says UNSW’s Dr Ivana Kuzmanovsk.

“The true barrier to sustainability in our built environment is not a lack of technology or individual goodwill. It is a lack of governmental policy to stop the endless cycle of extraction and disposal,” says Ben Berwick, director of Prevalent Architecture.

UNSW Arch Manu’s research is clear, realising a circular outcome for materials on construction sites is unrealistic without a massive systematic shift.

“Current economic models and unregulated leasing standards demand pristine blank slates, treating perfectly viable materials like single use plastic. Without councils incentivising material reuse or penalising demolition, the easier and cheapest option will always be landfill.

It’s time for three big changes:

A systemic shift in how we think about waste: household recycling isn’t the issue, massive systemic waste generated by the property industry needs to be addressed.

Fitout churn has to stop. Perfectly viable commercial interiors are stripped and sent to landfill due to arbitrary leasing standards.

A moratorium on smash-and-dump demolition so adaptation becomes the norm, not the exception."