用公路廢料建房子

A lot of us take the highway home every day， and our next homeowners actually did. They took 600，000 pounds of concrete and steel and recycled it into their very own home.

This is the leafy suburb of Lexington， but on one corner of this historic Boston suburb， you’ll find a home with an unusual past. It was built out of an old highway， but not just any old highway. This house was recycled from the leftovers of America’s costliest and most complex highway construction project. “The Big Dig，” as it was called， tore down a highway in downtown Boston and built a tunnel in its place. Paul and Cristina Pedini are civil engineers. Paul worked on the Big Dig.

Paul： We had been directed to remove pieces of the Big Dig on behalf of the state， and they suggested to us that we would put them in a landfill and they’d pay us to do it， and I suggested that maybe they give us the materials and save the money. We needed a house， so， put two and two together.

…and got six levels， a 1）sumptuous kitchen， a two-story living room， two bedrooms， a working studio， two bathrooms and a Japanese garden on top of the garage. In all， 4，200 ft2 of luxury supported by 30 steel beams and by 13 2）slabs of concrete 3）salvaged from the old interstate.

Paul： We get the people that just walk in and go“Wow！”， and they get it. And then there’s other people that walk in and shriek because they can’t believe that you leave pipes exposed and “What’s that cement up there， that concrete？” They’re horrified by it.

The massive 4）wide flange beams allow the kitchen to cover an incredible 1，200 ft2 without any supporting walls. You’d never find that in a regular house.

Up on the next level is the two-story great room， all held up by recycled bits of the Big Dig.

Paul： This beam is one of the largest beams you can buy. Its former life it was a 5）strut inside the tunnel. So these guys actually were put between the tunnel walls as we were building them， and held them from coming in， so this， having performed that duty， was cut apart and painted and put in the house. Now it’s holding the floors up.

But one man’s road is another man’s ceiling， and Paul knows where every last piece of that ceiling came from.

Paul： This is the 6）cantilevered pieces of the slabs. This is one of the places where you can see， on the underside of the slab， the identification marks for each of the slabs when they functioned as parts of the I-93 roadway， and you can also see stamps up there telling you where they were bought， where they were made. It centers around the fact that these materials aren’t just material. They’re a pre-fabricated product， and what you’re doing when you crush them up and throw them away， is you are 7）squandering all of that labor that was originally put into that piece.

It has a lot to do with who’s controlling the materials. You know， in our case， I was fortunate enough to…to be the person who was tasked with throwing it away.

What an incredible home！ Not only is it a 8）prototype of how to recycle heavy materials， but it’s also a great example of what you can recycle if you put your mind to it.

很多人每天回家的時候都會走高速公路，而我們接下來要介紹的這棟住宅的主人卻把高速公路帶回了家。他們把60萬磅（約27萬公斤）重的鋼筋水泥回收并用這些建造了他們的家。

這里是樹木茂盛的列克星頓市郊，在這個具有歷史意義的波士頓郊區的某一角，有一座住宅有著不同尋常的過去。它用一條舊高速公路的材料建成，而且還不是普通的高速公路。這棟房子的建材是從美國最昂貴，也是最復雜的高速公路建設工程回收而來。這項被稱為“大挖掘”的隧道工程拆除了原本行經波士頓市區的一條高速公路，并在原地建造了一條地下隧道。保羅·皮迪尼和克里斯廷娜·皮迪尼夫婦是土木工程師。保羅曾為這個隧道工程效力。

保羅：我們受州政府委托清除隧道工程的廢料。他們建議我們將廢料送到垃圾掩埋場，他們會付錢給我們來做這個事情。我建議他們把廢料給我們，并省下那筆費用。我們需要一棟房子，那么綜合起來，正好利用那些現有的建材。

他們建成了一座六層樓高的房子。里面有一間奢華的廚房、兩層樓高的客廳、兩間臥房、一間工作室、兩間浴室，還有位于車庫上的日式花園。這所面積為四千兩百平方英尺（約390m2）的奢華住房由30根鋼梁和13塊混凝土板支撐，建材全部來自那條舊州際公路。

保羅：有人一進來就會發出驚嘆，他們很喜歡；另外有人一進來會尖叫，因為他們不敢相信我們竟讓管道外露，會問：“上面的水泥是怎么回事，還有那些混凝土？……