Offcut Curtain

ARCH 4605 Surplus Assemblies
Taught by Catherine Chen
with Jonathan Wilmers
Fall 2025

Leather is an ancient building material, practical in its ability to provide comfort and warmth. Today, it is often used for clothing and furniture, these manufacturing industries alongside the leather tanning industry itself produce significant amounts of leather solid waste, in the form of offcuts, fleshings, and sludge.

Recent estimates indicate that at least 6 million metric tons of solid leather is wasted per year. During the tanning process, 35% of raw hide material becomes untanned waste in the form of fat, hair, organic matter, or offcuts. 25% of the material becomes tanned leather waste in the form of offcuts. 20% is lost in water waste. This leaves only 20% of raw hide material becoming usable tanned leather. In the manufacturing process cutting rates are typically between 25-60% according to the United Nations Industrial Development Organization. This means that 5-12% of total raw hide material becomes treated leather offcuts.

Stone quarrying is an essential process in the architectural sphere, providing both basic and fine material for a wide range of project applications. The production of dimensional stone exposes stoneworkers to an intense environment of air and sound pollution that can have long-term effects on health. While new technologies have identified the more quantifiable forms of surplus caused by the quarrying industry, environmental and spatial surpluses on site are largely overlooked.

There are methods for assembling leather offcuts at quarrying sites to mediate air and noise pollution. This project investigates the potential for a partition for stoneworkers made from leather offcuts. The site is conceptualized through an abstract quarry plan based on Milstein Hall.