The Cannibal’s Cookbook: Mining Myths of Cyclopean Constructions
The contemporary building industry is addicted to new materials in an era that necessitates smarter practices. The concrete industry alone accounts for 8% of global CO2 emissions with alarmingly little attention paid to the inevitable obsolescence of that material. These buildings are destined for the landfill with concrete occupying the vast majority of that mass. The Cannibal’s Cookbook mines solutions from an ancient practice known as cyclopean masonry—a practice that intelligently consumes the rubble of building stock to provide new structures. This book contextualizes these practices, deciphers the mysteries embedded in their cryptic geometries, and provides a series of recipes that can be adapted, automated, and applied today. Is the key to recycling our building materials locked inside the cryptic cyclopean masonry walls suspected of being built by primordial giants? The Cannibal’s Cookbook challenges the inappropriate practices surrounding concrete by learning from the myths and legends of architectural cannibalism.
“The book is a true bombshell, fearlessly exploding the world of architecture; by getting rid of contemporary times, defined as a self-destructive, mad delirium, Clifford takes us back to what Bruno Zevi called, ‘the Zero Mark,’ a primigenial architecture – eternal and mythical in its construction processes – that, in this case, is projected into the future.” — Riccardo Buratti, Domus
"Clifford’s algorithms provide something akin to recipes, with prescriptive techniques and methods that show builders how to turn a pile of rubble into a wall." — Katharine Schwab, FastCo