Urban Transplant: Concrete Transformation Methods with Reuse

Urban Transplant is a tool for post-capitalist architecture. The circular approach, supported by in-depth research into reuse of in-situ structural concrete as components, offers transformation methods in the built environment. A dual site in Brussels, the World Trade Center and a post-industrial terrain, provides a proof of concept for the idea...

Assessment of the reuse potential of existing concrete: Enhancing circularity in the Dutch building sector by harvesting structural elements from demolition projects

Awareness about our planet is more important than ever before. Thereby, the transition towards a Circular Economy (CE) aims to keep products in use and to design out waste. In the construction industry, one way of reducing the use of raw materials is by transforming waste residuals from demolition projects into resources to be reused. By...

The Reuse of Building Products

The construction industry is the world’s largest consumer of raw materials (WorldEconomic Forum, 2016). The industry is also known for the large amounts of waste it produces.In the EU, one third of all waste is construction and demolition waste (European Commission,2019), and in the Netherlands, this type of waste accounts for almost one quarter...

Identifying and subducting the key barriers of reusing precast girders in Dutch overpasses

Reuse is highly appraised in the theories about circularity and sustainability. However, overpass girders in the main road network of Rijkswaterstaat are never reused for the same function. There are barriers present which hampers the reusing elements in comparison with the traditional way of handling infrastructure projects. Most of the main...

Economic Feasibility of Reusing Structural Components: “How to quantitatively assess the economic feasibility of reusing structural components from existing buildings into new construction?”

The Netherlands has the vision to be completely circular by 2050 cutting its raw material consumption to half by 2030. To reduce the raw material consumption, materials in use must be reused and nothing should be wasted. However, the construction industry is far from reaching this goal. It is traditional in the EOL treatment of the building. The...

Circular demolition process: Enhancing the reuse potential of components and materials in the building industry

The demolition activities produce a huge amount of waste that have negative effects on the environment. In the current demolition practices, most of the waste are recycled or landfilled. Only a small percentage is retrieved and reused again. Reuse is preferred than recycling since it better for the environment. To increase the reuse, more...

Circular Demolition and Component Reuse in Construction: The Current Building Stock as a Source of Components for New Buildings

Circular building has been increasing in popularity over several years. The idea being that we should not use resources only once and then discard them, but continue using them in new products. The construction industry has responded to this by designing 'circular' buildings that can be disassembled at the end of their functional life. This...

Sustainable Sport Venue Design: A design proposal for a demountable temporary Olympic arena, optimized for a post-event use in steel construction.

A design strategy for an temporary Olympic arena optimized for a post-event use in steel construction has been researched. Three strategies have been considered, namely relocation, adaptation en up-cycling. A research by design was conducted with a parametric model, where two optimized designs have been compared. Applying several reuse...

Reuse of EEE consumer products, a potential End-of-Life strategy for CRM's

BACKGROUND Several elements displayed in the 2011 MEErP’s (Methodology for the Ecodesign of Energy-related Products) and JRC’s (European Commission Joint Research Centre) reports which will be used in preparatory studies for measures under the recast of the Ecodesign Directive, indicate that a European list of Critical Raw Materials (CRM’s)...