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The Wobo, as the brick bottle design was called, was designed to be used in Caribbean communities which lacked adequate building materials. A little before their time, the term for a product like this is called upcycling—making the packaging of the beer bottle more useful after it's intitial purpose has been fulfilled.

We're not sure we'd want a whole house built from these brick bottles but the beauty of the new Heineken City wall reminds us that the mundane and seemingly useless could be transformed into something not only beautiful but sustainable and responsible, as well.

Maybe college beer can towers were on to something. Are there other products that you use that become more useful after their intitial purpose has bee fulfilled?

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