2023 Visionary Award winner for Architecture and Design, Revival Projects. Photography by Tom Graham. Robbie Neville, the founder of the Melbourne-based multidisciplinary practice Revival Projects, believes in second chances. His company, which he established in 2016 and is anchored by an unwavering commitment to sustainability, salvages construction materials and uses them to shape new developments.
“This is the future of circular building practices,” says the awards judge and Indigenous design expert Beau de Belle, who describes Neville’s business as “a truly sustainable manifestation of the intersection of architecture, building and design”.
Revival acts as an industry middleman, shortening the distance between builders, contractors and reclaimed goods, and also highlighting the aesthetic appeal of previously used materials. Neville has assembled a team of designers, builders, furniture makers and structural engineers to bring his vision of a circular economy to life across commercial and residential architecture projects.
Last year, his company transformed an industrial warehouse scheduled for demolition into the Zero Footprint Repurposing hub, a free space devoted to the storage and reuse of materials from demolished buildings. It also launched its own app, Revival Cooperative, a community-centred platform where users can redistribute or source materials that would otherwise be destined for landfill.
“This is an exciting nexus of digital technology and physical materials, creating a zero footprint,” says de Belle. “Revival Cooperative is an exemplar for a new digital cataloguing of salvaged building materials.
