Introducing a circular construction hub for building material circularity in city: A case study in Leiden, the Netherlands

The Dutch government has published the circular economy goal, which aims to reduce 50% consumption of raw materials by 2030 and realize full circularity by 2050. The goal leads the promotion of the sustainability development, particularly, on improving the resilience of the self-sufficient material supply chain in the Dutch economy. As one of...

FlexHolz: A timber floor system guided by a grading tool that increases circularity.

A structure is expected to remain for 30-300 years. Building services are most likely integrated into floors and wear out or become obsolete every 7-15 years (Brand, 1995). Currently, 58% of all timber products are landfilled (Lucas et al., 2017). To ensure timber structures’ long and useful service life, adaptability and integration with...

Circularity in infrastructure projects with Early Contractor Involvement: Investigating the knowledge contribution of contractors towards circular construction in the design process

The number of raw materials consumed and waste generated by the construction industry is no longer a viable solution in the future. It is required for the construction industry to move from a linear towards a circular economy (CE) by circular construction (CC). The unfamiliarity in actions that need to be taken for CC is still new terrain for...

Development of a modular system for circular timber highway bridges

The infrastructure industry currently deals with two issues: the deterioration of (highway) bridges, and the urge to reduce emissions by the construction sector. Rijkswaterstaat must repair or replace hundreds of bridges in the upcoming decades. At the same time, the impact of human behaviour on climate change becomes more visible and must be...

Digital Twins as Enabler in Circular Construction Management

With the increasing attention on circularity and digitalization in the built environment, Digital Twins (DT), as a means of linking the digital world and real-world data, is considered as an enabler of circular construction (CC) and dealing with the related societal challenges, such as slowing the material and resource loops, optimizing the...

The Soft Transition: Towards a circular construction & demolition sector in South-Holland

Currently the Construction & Demolition (C&D) sector in South Holland produces 2.581.840 tons of waste every year, it is also responsible for 50% of raw material usage and 35% of CO2 emissions. This issue is aggravated when considering the 200.000 houses that still need to be built in the region in the upcoming decade, increasing the...

The Circular Concrete Viaduct: Development of a Concept Demountable Footing to Foundation (F2F) Dowel Connection for the Application in Multiple Life-Cycles

The main motivation for this research originated from two ambitions, which involve many challenges for which circular solutions have to be developed. First, the ambition of the Dutch government to achieve a circular economy, which also includes a circular construction industry, in the Netherlands by 2050 at the latest. Secondly, in line with the...

Implementing circularity in the construction process: a case study examining the reorganization of multi-actor environment and the decision-making process

Circularity aims to make waste obsolete by both closing and narrowing resource loops and by extending the lifespan of materials and products. This fundamentally different approach to construction practices necessitates a completely different method of organising the construction process. The rounds of decision-making undertaken by different...

Circular Transition for the Wind Energy Sector: Focus on challenges and obstacles when two transitions (Energy & Circular) intervene.

Converging and lasting global issues such as climate change, global warming, resource depletion, etc. have urged interest in science, technology and policy for systemic societal change. These aspects have led the policy makers in the Netherlands to gradually adopt a transition approach. Over the past few years there is an increase in the...

Feasibility of incorporating the concept of demountable (modular) construction to an existing integral bridge design

Adopt the concept of demountable and rebuildable brides to an existing idea of an integral bridge. An understanding of the different forces and moments that the bridge will have to take up and how the critical connections (deck-abutment) can be realized. Applying the understanding of how integral and demountable bridges behave and try to...

ENCOREstate: Enabling Circular Construction to Public Space Regeneration in Shanghai New Workers' Estates

The most urgent need for regeneration in the future is a large number of new workers' estates built from the 1950s. The physical and social decay problems of these areas start to become severe in recent years. There has already been some researches and regeneration of the buildings in these areas, but the public space quality is dissatisfied and...

Closed Loops, Open Justice: Creating circular construction flows, for a just social housing industry

In the province of South Holland steps have been taken to create a circular construction industry to mitigate current linear processes. These linear processes include wasteful resource-intensive models that lead to loss of value and depletion of raw materials. However, to achieve a complete circular construction industry, the true social and...

Implementation of circularity in the building process: A case study research into organizing the actor network and decision-making process

Circularity aims to reduce waste by closing and narrowing resource loops and by extending the lifetime of materials and products. As a consequence of this fundamentally different approach to construction practices, implementation entails a different organization of the building process. The purpose of this research is to make recommendations...

Circular construction and demolition waste?: Barriers and opportunities for creating circular business models in the EU C&DW sector

The main goal of this paper is to identify barriers and opportunities for creating the circular business models in the EU C&DW sector. Having in mind this fact, author of the paper describes market, social, governance and regulatory failures which may limit opportunities for achieving market success in the EU C&DW sector. The presentation will...