The Las Vegas Strip is notorious for excessive drinking, but what do you do with all the empties?
One designer specializing in environmental architecture answered the question by erecting the world's largest building made entirely of recycled beer bottles.
Building entrepreneur Scott McCombs created the 30,000-square-foot Morrow Royal Pavilion of more than 500,000 bottles weighing 290,000lbs that were crushed and formed into a composite material called GreenStone.
Majestic: A Las Vegas-area construction craftsman designed the Morrow Royal Pavilion - a 30,000-square-foot building made up of 500,000 glass bottles
New approach: Realm of Design had Las Vegas hotels and casinos send some 290,000lbs of beer and wine bottles to its facility, where they were crushed and combined with other materials to make GreenStone
Exercise room: A portion of the new facility was set aside to be used as a CrossFit gym
Palatial workplace: Most of the Pavilion is used as a manufacturing facility by Realm of Design employees
The construction of the unusual building, which houses the firm's manufacturing facility, helped save an estimated 400,000 cubic yards of junk yard space - or the equivalent of eight football fields piled to the top of the goal post, Inhabitat reported.
Nearly every element in the $1.4million edifice at 1188 Center Point Drive in Henderson, from fireplaces to columns and balustrades, features a glass component.
GreenStone, which acts as a concrete substitute, is created from a combination of recycled glass crushed into tiny grains and fly ash - a by-product from coal-fired power plants.
The resulting concoction is then poured into molds and allowed to dry and harden until it becomes a building material.
Most of the work on the innovative building was done by hand and took McCombs and his family over a year to complete. The company had to purchase a $50,000 glass crusher to pulverize the bottles on site.
The design of the 'green' structure was inspired by the Swarkestone Hall Pavilion in England, which appeared on the cover of the Rolling Stones’ Hot Rocks album.
Carcass: The team at Realm of Design went to work on their new manufacturing facility in Henderson, Nevada
Team effort: The McCombs family as well as several workers worked for well over a year to put the building together
Smashed: The firm bought a $50,000 glass crusher to pulverize the bottles being delivered from Las Vegas hotels and casinos
Progress: The building was partially finished in 2010, but the facility held a grand opening a year later
McCombs’ green architecture firm, Realm of Design, which created the Vegas pavilion, launched a Facebook campaign over the summer to try and get the Stones to visit the new building honoring their cover art, but so far, no response has come from the band.
The building is being used to manufacture GreenStone for Realm of Design. It also houses a gym and a storage facility. There are even future plans to create residential space within some of the towers, according to World Architecture News.
According to McCombs, he first came up with the idea after seeing how many beer bottles are discarded by casinos on the Strip and shipped over to the city landfill.
McCombs named his palatial new edifice, located next door to the Realm of Design showroom, the Morrow Royal Pavilion because recycling benefits tomorrow, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported.
‘I figured we couldn't get anybody's attention unless we did it in a big way,’ said McCombs, a construction craftsman who launched the Vegas-area business back in 1991.
Judging by the copious consumption of alcoholic beverages in Sin City, it does not appear like McCombs is going to run out of raw material for his concrete substitute anytime soon.
Sustainable: All the architectural details on the property are made from GreenStone, which is a concrete substitute made from a mix of glass and fly-ash
Clean-up: The 500,000 bottles used in the construction of the pavilion saved some 400,000 cubic yards of landfill space
He told the Review-Journal that the 145 tons of beer and wine bottles delivered from the Strip to his facility every week represent about $26million in alcohol sales over a single weekend.
In a phone interview with MailOnline Wednesday night, the building designer’s wife, Cindy McCombs, said that since the Morrow Pavilion officially opened its doors in May 2011, they have been getting a lot of positive feedback from neighbors.
In terms of building costs, Mrs McCombs admitted that using the green building technology does come at a premium, but the slightly higher cost is offset by significant benefits.
‘It does cost us a little bit more, ‘ she said, ‘but it’s all part of doing the right thing. It’s just a great way to get rid of glass.’
According to Mrs McCombs, who is the president of Realm of Design, she and her husband fell in love with a castle depicted on a random poster they had come across at a store.
After doing some digging, the family discovered that the featured edifice was the 17th century Swarkestone Hall Pavilion in Derbyshire, England, which graced the cover of the Stones’ first compilation album from the years 1964-1971.
Prototype: After seeing Swarkestone Pavilion Hall on the cover of a Rolling Stones album, the McCombs traveled to Derbyshire, England, to tour the 17th century building
They decided to travel across the Atlantic to take a closer look at the impressive castle surrounded by lush cow pastures in the English countryside.
After returning home, Mr McCombs set out to create his recycled, green version of the historic pavilion. Once all the molds were made, Cindy McCombs said that her husband welded much of the building together himself.
‘Scott always wanted to put something like that together,’ she said. ‘It just kind of worked out.’
