Design teams play a crucial role in circular construction as they make decisions affecting the circularity of buildings at various stages of the construction process, i.e., at the conceptual, design, implementation, use, and end-of-life stages. However, other stakeholders also play an essential role in implementing circular practices. For instance, contractors should consider waste reduction and reuse of construction elements during and after construction, and project owners (e.g., investors) should encourage the whole team to implement circular measures.
In this section, you can find a list of tips for project teams prepared within the CIRCON project on including circularity at various stages of the project (i.e., conceptual, construction, and evaluation stages) based on discussions with experts and the Level(s) system guidelines.
Conceptual stage
Building location and function
Use the potential of existing building structures
Include:
the possibility of using the existing supporting structure;
the possibility of using materials and elements of the building (e.g., floor elements, bricks).
The pre-demolition audit and following its selective demolition plan can aid in assessing the available resources and facilitating their harvesting during the demolition. More information about it can be found here.
Choose the location with the greatest accessibility of road infrastructure, electricity grid, water supply, etc., to minimise extra work related to supplying them to the project site.
Plan for repurposing and life-cycle adaptability of the newly designed building.
Include:
the possibility of adapting the building to the future needs of users;
the possibility of changing the function of the building.
Design stage
Design
Design the structure to enable room expansion, rearrangement, or repurpose without significant construction work so that the space can be shared, transformed, or modified (design-for-adaptability).
Include:
appropriate column grid spacing (i.e., wider spacing allows for more flexible floor layouts);
appropriate arrangement of facade elements (i.e., narrower bays provide better options in terms of interior space configuration);
interior wall system as non-load-bearing interior walls allow easier changes in room layout;
greater floor height for placing service ducts (e.g., gas, water) in a way that they are not embedded in the building structure, as it increases flexibility in routing internal utilities;
room size and access to ensure the possibility to access and exit separate (smaller) parts/wings of the larger space as it increases sublease opportunities;
non-load-bearing facades as it enables changes in the interior layout and exterior elements without needing significant construction work;
future-proof structural load-bearing capacity (i.e., a redundant structural load-bearing capacity enables broader changes in the facade and use of the building in the future);
structural design with future expansion in mind (i.e., structural designs with a solid horizontal structure to bear additional floors allow for future vertical expansion);
possibility of converting the ground floor to serve another function;
easy access to all parts of the space, providing access for people with disabilities, older people, and children.
Design the premises and their versatility and adaptability, having in mind the needs of people with disabilities.
Include:
the versatility of floor layout, taking into account the safety and convenience of users;
accessibility to rooms and their functions (i.e., use, among others, wide doors, the convenient height of countertops, contrast lighting, and handrails);
ease of movement (i.e., safe and stable floor surfaces, avoiding stairs and other obstacles).
Design the building structure to be disassembly (i.e., providing easy access to individual components and avoiding permanent connections of structural elements)
Include:
independent and relatively easily separable components and their parts;
reducing the number of connections between components (i.e., hierarchical building structure instead of horizontal) to increase their disassembly potential;
sequential hierarchical assembly structure (i.e., dividing components into levels, assembling the same levels in parallel and in order from the highest to the lowest) as it enables parallel disassembly;
using connections and components with as simplified geometry as possible and prefabricated because off-site prefabrication enables using standardised connections, increases accessibility to components, and reduces waste from on-site component preparation;
prioritise mechanical, reversible, and non-destructive connections (e.g., click, bolt, or nut connections) and only secondarily chemical and non-reversible bonding (e.g., glue or weld connections, chemical anchors);
readily accessible connections;
specification of elements with standardised dimensions;
the potential of modular construction.
Materials
Indoor installations and technical equipment
Construction stage
Material transportation/Building construction
Obtain building materials from local sources whenever possible.
Maximise and optimise transportation efficiency.
Pay attention to the type of packaging of the supplied materials - it should be reusable or recyclable.
Use circular elements that support the construction process, e.g., 3D printed parts, prefabricated parts, or any other reusable materials (e.g., formwork).
Use high-quality equipment, machinery, and appliances with high energy class to reduce electricity consumption.
Utilise renewable energy sources and rainwater during the construction process.
Construction waste
Evaluation stage
Check whether the preferred method of obtaining materials/elements for construction is reuse, followed by upcycling, recycling, and, after all, downcycling.
Check that attention has been paid to ensure that the building is a material bank and contains the highest possible proportion of elements that can be reused, upcycled, recycled, or, after all, downcycled.
Check that attention has been paid to ensure that the construction process includes optimising energy consumption and minimising consumption of primary raw materials and construction waste. The building's circularity analysis should be compared with other environmental impact analyses to select the most favourable final solutions.
Check for possible ways of assessing the project's/building's circularity.
Currently, there is no standardised way of measuring a building's or its elements' circularity. Possible ways of assessing a project's/building's circularity can be found in the Nordic Report on Metrics for circularity. An example of a tool for assessing circularity is The Circularity Index Tool, which covers the benefits of longevity, recycling, and design for disassembly.
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