Purpose: A paradigm in circular economy (CE) is that suppliers retain ownership of their products and materials, and that the users “only” pay for services. In many legal systems, however, elements incorporated in a building are considered to be fixtures, and therefore legally part of the building. This means that ensuring multi-cyclic behaviour of individual building elements (e.g. the facade or a window) is not so evident. This paper explores, from the perspective of Dutch law, how to secure the ownership of the supplier or to find alternatives within the existing system of property law. Design/methodology/approach: The authors performed a literature review of both CE and (Dutch) property law. The results of these reviews are discussed and illustrated by legal case studies. Findings: The options principally advocated within CE to retain ownership of building parts leave legal uncertainties and do not offer a solid basis for the development of circular business models, especially considering immovables and fixtures. For these categories, buy-back and take-back contracts, and models for reuse and recycling seem more promising. Research limitations/implications: The research is limited to a literature review. Although the legal principles discussed in this paper are valid for both civil and common law systems, and similar findings might, therefore, be expected internationally, this study focused on the specific Dutch legal context. Comparative legal research and research of best practices in the building industry is needed to test the applicability of the findings in an international context. Practical implications: Following the findings, CE initiatives within real estate and the construction industry should focus on alternative implementations of the operational lease concept, taking into account CE’s ambitions to reduce the extraction of raw materials. Originality/value: At the moment the challenges that property law poses CE, real estate and operational lease are hardly discussed within the literature. This paper explores this gap. ... Read more

This paper presents results of an architectural research regarding public Brazilian social housing production. Its goal was to evaluate the design, technological-constructive, economic and management feasibility of producing, as well as the financial feasibility for dwellers to access a more adequate dwelling, in light of the Open Building approach. The investigation arises from two issues: [1] spatial rigidity of units and buildings and [2] the absence of dwellers in the decision-making process once currently this producton is the result of the exclusive partnership between State and Market. Besides the inadequacy when meeting families’ housing needs, the current rate of housing production is low compared to the predominant housing provision performed by the Autoconstruction. This paper demonstrates that Habraken’s Supports Theory is, as a counterpoint, an effective way of reconciling the contradictions mentioned and replacing the obsolete paradigm with a new interweaving of Autoconstruction and State/Market production traditions and possibilities. Based on the distinction between the levels of decision-making, collective decisions (manifested in a Support or Base Building) and decisions respecting the autonomy of individual dwellings (Infill or Fit-out), the Open Building approach solves simultaneously, and interdependently, the physical, but also social and political problems identified in the research. ... Read more

The construction and renovation of the building envelope represents a significant fraction of a project’s life-cycle costs. It also has a determinant effect on the potential reduction in energy use, as well as on the improvement of the building’s indoor comfort. Nevertheless, the challenge of a low rate and depth in building energy renovations cannot be solved through technological innovation alone. Instead, the Façade Leasing research project proposes a systemic shift in economic and business incentives, towards the creation of a performance-based contracting model for integrated façades.

Façade Leasing explores an integral, cross-disciplinary model promoting accelerated strategic investment in energy-efficient building envelopes. A focus on performance delivery, rather than product sales, would in turn impulse ongoing innovation in products and management processes. It would also provide the foundations for Circular Economy strategies for the reuse and remanufacturing of building components, leading to a potential reduction in primary raw material consumption across the façade industry.

This study starts by describing the “Façade Leasing pilot project” developed and built at the TU Delft campus by a consortium of açademic and industry partners. It then outlines the main drivers and barriers to the commercial application of the Façade-as-a-Service concept in the Dutch public, nonresidential real estate sector, from the perspective of four key stakeholder groups: Demand drive, or the decision-making process of real estate developers, owners, and managers; Supplier readiness, or the necessary reorganization of products and processes along the supply-chain; Finance, or the distribution of financial resources bridging the gap between initial investment cost and longterm service fees; and governance, or the necessary regulatory innovation required to separate ownership of building and façade.

The research shows that, while further research and validation work is needed to test these principles in a controlled, case-study setting, the potential for façade-as-a-service delivery is within reach under the current legal and economic environment. ... Read more

The concept that suppliers retain ownership of building products and the materials encapsulated within these products and that their customers ‘only’ pay for services is a paradigm in Circular Economy. However in many legal systems, elements incorporated in a building such as the facade or the roof, or equipment in a plant, are seen as fixtures and therefore considered to be a part of real estate. Therefore ensuring multi-cyclic behaviour within the so-called technical loop of CE is not evident. At the moment the challenges of property law concerning CE, real estate and operational lease are hardly discussed within the literature. This paper explores the concept of service providing related to operational lease for real estate, with a focus on Dutch property law, illustrated by legal case studies. The paper ends with some conclusions that offer first guidelines for alternative implementations of the operational lease concept, taking into account the CE ambitions to reduce the extraction of the amount of raw materials. ... Read more

After its launch, the circular economy gained popularity all over the world as the new sustainability paradigm. Despite its popularity there is little to no material to be found on the implementation of the circular economy in the construction industry. Through a mixed method methodology using literature reviews, case studies, thought exercises, and interviews to both build and subsequently validate theory, five circular business models for service providing in the construction industry were developed. Next a roadmap for advance circular services was set up. These models show internal and external supply-side stakeholders how to implement the circular economy, and that this implementation is thinkable on a business-case level, but less evident on
an industry level. This as previously unaddressed financial and regulatory aspects challenge the implementation of the circular economy in the construction industry. Considering these challenges, implementing the circular economy in the construction industry might be considered even more disruptive as in other sectors of our industrial economy. ... Read more

The leading principles for our new curriculum are to strengthen its scientific base, and to provide a program in which students orientate themselves along the full width of the domain and also have sufficient possibilities to specialize themselves. ... Read more

Market developments show increased demands for flexibility and sustainability by users and owners of buildings. A direct connection can be made between adaptive building and sustainability. The longer a building can keep its functional life cycle instead of becoming vacant or being demolished, the more sustainable a building will be. One way of looking into this phenomenon is the more a building is flexible and able to adapt to changing user demands, the longer it will keep its functional life cycle. In 2014 a paper was presented at the International Union of Architects World Congress UIA2014 in Durban SA, titled Adaptive Capacity of Buildings. A report was given of an extensive international literature survey and the development of a method to determine the adaptive capacity of buildings. In total 147 flexibility indicators were described with accompanying assessment values. The most important recommendation for the next step was the development of an easy to use assessment method in practice with a limited number of important adaptability performance indicators.
Further research led in 2015 to a renewed assessment method with 83 indicators, clustered in five layers with different life cycles. This method was called FLEX 2.0 and a derived version was called FLEX 2.0 LIGHT with only 17 of the most important indicators. This was presented in 2015 at the CIB Conference - Going North for sustainability in London. At the same time this method was used in two separate research projects for an evaluation with experts in practice. One research project concerned the development of school buildings; the other project was related to the development of office buildings. The main conclusions and recommendations of both research projects to evaluate the FLEX 2.0 method in practice with two different types of real estate will be described in this paper. Questions will be answered about the differences and similarities between the two different categories of real estate when using this flexibility assessment method. This will lead to some important conclusions for the next version of the method: FLEX 3.0. Finally a renewed framework for this next version will be presented. ... Read more

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