Random Absurdly Crazy Buildings Made from Trash and Recycled Materials (11 items)

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  (#1) Cathedral of Junk

  Vince Hannemann started building the Cathedral of Junk in his backyard in Austin, TX, in 1989. Over the years, it grew into a surreal palace of reclaimed trash and knick-knacks that boggles the mind and has attracted everyone from curious kids to wedding parties.

  The Cathedral of Junk hides from view on Lareina Drive, but once you're on Hannemann's property, it commands the attention. There are toys, bikes, CDs, computer monitors, wine bottles, tattered American flags, statues sporting Sharpie mustaches – almost anything imaginable. Much of it arrives by donation. Roadside America took a peace pipe and aluminum rooster when it visited the attraction.

  The cathedral underwent a massive zoning fight with the city of Austin in 2010, and at one point Hannemann announced he was dismantling it. However, a last-minute reprieve allowed the Cathedral of Junk to remain in all its garbage glory, so long as Hannemann did not advertise it as a tourist attraction. The cathedral went on to win the Best Organized Chaos award from The Austin Chronicle in 2012.
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  (#2) Cano's Castle

  God is the one who made this, while I was under the influence. God used my hands while I was trippin'.

  Those words of inspiration come straight from the mouth of Vietnam War vet Dominic "Cano" Espinosa in this short vid from Flickerista Productions, and when you see the… thing he built in Antonito, CO, you just know he did it stoned out of his mind. Two prominent towers rise above an encampment decked out with years's worth of trash hauled in from the local dump – 100-year-old planks, scrap metal, rocks, hubcaps, sliced-up beer cans galore, and a whole lot more. It all coalesces into something that can only be described as crazy.

  Cano himself is just as bizarre as his creation. He says Jesus has been living in the castle since 1987, and that the world will soon end, when meteorites pound 2/3 of humanity into meat patties. He also says we never made it to the moon, and now we're trying to get to the "other one"; he's got some oddball ideas about diet and women, too.

  But Cano's got heart, that's for sure. His dedication to this building is both inspiring and perplexing. If you stop by to snap some photos, he'll probably show up to offer a few nuggets of castle history – along with his trippin' vision of Jesus and judgment day.
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  (#3) Don Justo's Cathedral

  Justo Gallego Martinez's cathedral is outrageously amazing to behold. Don Justo, as he is known, is an ex-Trappist monk and farmer and, since 1963, he's been slowly but steadily building a cathedral near Madrid that's modeled on St. Peter's Basilica in Vatican City. The whole thing is made of discarded materials, and reaches a good 40 meters into the sky.

  Don Justo started his project with zero construction experience, and he's still going strong in 2016. If you've got 20 minutes, Future Shorts has a great YouTube bit called The Madman and the Cathedral that delves into Don Justo's background and his longtime labor of faith.
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  (#4) The Brighton Waste House

  The Brighton Waste House is a research project you could live inside if it wasn't for all those pesky graduate students and workshopgoers. Built with waste materials salvaged from construction projects, this low-energy structure was completed in April 2014, and it's living proof that waste material can go a long way.

  It's also proof that young people can play a big role in building innovative, contemporary housing – students at City College Brighton and Hove in England helped make this thing happen. Just a few of the items that went into its construction include vinyl banners, razors, jeans, chalk waste, and 20,000 toothbrushes.

  For inspiration, the Brighton Waste House looked to The House That Kevin Built, a sustainable home that went up in London in 2008 over six days – on live TV.
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  (#5) Victor Moore's Junk Castle

  Artist Victor Moore built a tiny castle of scrap in 1970 as part of his MFA thesis, and he did it for the ridiculously low price of $500. According to Atlas Obscura, the castle features reclaimed sheet metal, salvaged remains of cars and appliances, and windows made of old washing machine doors. This special Whitman County, WA, structure was later sold by Moore and his wife, but with a decent tiny army you could probably lay siege and take it for yourself.

  One of Moore's former students, artist and photographer David Patterson, published a blog post about the building, accompanied by high-quality pictures, one of which is shown here.
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  (#6) Palace of Depression

  George Daynor's Palace of Depression, finished on Christmas Day 1932, grew up in a combination junkyard/swamp property Daynor bought in Vineland, NJ, for a whopping $4. The palace's name does not refer to deep despair; rather, it was a statement about overcoming the Great Depression. Daynor lost everything in the stock market crash of 1929 and wandered his way to New Jersey seeking a new fortune. After buying his new property without even seeing it, he discovered its poor condition, but was undeterred – especially after an angel told him in a dream to build a palace.

  So that's what he did. The Palace of Depression became a major tourist attraction and supported Daynor until late in life. The original palace fell victim to vandalism and was bulldozed in the late '60s, but a local nonprofit has been slowly rebuilding it piece by piece.
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  (#7) Save the Beach Hotel

  Corona's Save the Beach Hotel was a bold statement piece intended to draw attention to the gross volume of trash that gets tossed on European beaches every year. And that trash is exactly what the hotel was made of – beer cans, toys, mannequin legs, even a garden gnome for good measure. Yep, this right here was the world's first garbage hotel, courtesy of the creative brains at J. Walter Thompson Madrid.

  HA Schult, the German artist famous for working with trash (see his Trash People for reference), was the mastermind behind the project's execution. Although the hotel wasn't really open to the public, people did stay in it – Danish supermodel Helena Christensen, for instance. It was more an art piece/public awareness campaign than a permanent structure, but still plenty awesome.
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  (#8) Temple of a Million Bottles

  This intriguing Thai creation, called Wat Pa Maha Chedi Kaew ("temple of a million bottles") consists mostly of discarded Heineken and Chang beer bottles. The catalyst for its construction was litter; or, more accurately, Buddhist monks in the Khun Han district getting sick of tripping over litter. In 1984, those monks came up with a brilliant two-step plan to clean up all the trash. Step 1: Collect all of the beer bottles. Step 2: Build a temple out of them.

  The temple was such a wild success the monks added more structures, including a crematorium, sleeping quarters, and water towers. And toilets, which you're welcome to use if you ever decide to visit.
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  (#9) Rotterdam House with WasteBasedBricks

  StoneCycling is a Dutch company that invented WasteBasedBricks, which are bricks made of leftovers from the ceramics, insulation, and glass industries, as well as unwanted clay and demolition waste. The end results are beautiful building blocks that successfully repurpose material that would have otherwise been trashed. The bricks are of superb craftsmanship, too – a mason who worked on the Rotterdam home of Nina Aalbers and Ferry in 't Veld was impressed by their exceptional durability.

  That home, by the way, is the first one in the Netherlands made with recycled bricks like this. You can see its construction progress here and read more about its background here.
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  (#10) Earthships

  People call him the Garbage Warrior. Michael Reynolds, eco-friendliness author and Earthships architect extraordinaire, has been on a mission to create alternative housing for decades. He and his team go to garbage dumps to collect materials – beer cans, tires, bottles, etc. – to build Earthships, which are super-green, single-story structures made of earth-rammed tire walls. They're works of art, they're off the grid, and they look cool.

  Reynolds got his nickname from the 2007 film Garbage Warrior, which tells the story of how his company Earthships Biotecture was born, and how Reynolds and crew have fought to make their green dream a reality. You don't have to watch it to realize that Reynolds is really on to something here.
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  (#11) The Budweiser House

  Built by Dan Phillips of The Phoenix Commotion, the Budweiser House is an affordable, eco-friendly home made mostly of reclaimed materials. Its design was inspired by, you guessed it, Budweiser beer. The colors red, white, blue, and silver feature prominently on the exterior, and inside you'll find a kitchen floor paved with Budweiser signage as well as a bathtub with a Budweiser tap for a faucet.

  It's just one of many such projects by Phillips, who established The Phoenix Commotion in Huntsville, TX, as a way to counter the commodification of housing and the waste that always results from this. All of his homes clock in at about 70-80% recycled, reclaimed, or salvaged material that otherwise would have ended up in the trash or a landfill.

  "The problem of waste is worldwide," said Phillips in a super-funny and engaging June 2010 TED talk. "We're in trouble."

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