Design for Disassembly for Facade Components in the Circular Economy

While the extracted resources on our planet become more and more scarcer, the construction industry keeps being the number one user of them and the number one waste generator. At the same time, a new type of Circular Economy has been presented where nothing can be considered as waste. This thesis is approaching this topic by examining ways of...

A circular approach to energy renovation

Our world and environment is facing a multitude of complex and intertwined environmental problems. Man made climate change, caused by anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions and causing an array of negative environmental effects. The raw material input and throughput currently necessary to sustain our human activities which create large...

Circular Façade Systems and Construction: Design for Remanufacturing Window Systems

Context<br/> The “take-make-dispose” linear model has proven to be highly unsustainable during the past decades. A circular economy has emerged as a model that is restorative by design, and a response towards the high material and energy intensive linear model. However, a transition to a circular built environment implies a radical change in...