Innovative Circular Solutions and Services for New Buildings and Refurbishments

Abstract

The housing sector is responsible for more than 50% of global resource extraction, about 50% of world energy consumption, 1/3 of water consumption and furthermore generates about 1/3 of all produced waste. A new, circular approach is needed to enable better decision-making on the selection of innovative architectural solutions for all phases of a building's life cycle. The current building sector's business model must be redesigned to include the application of new and improved methods, solutions and innovative services, and advance a positive transition from a linear economy to a circular economy. We will present the circular interventions carried out on a centenary building located in Vienna in the framework of the HOUSEFUL project. HOUSEFUL is an EU-funded initiative with the objective to develop and demonstrate integrated circular services, focusing on the optimal management of resources throughout the life cycle of new or existing buildings. The demonstration will include technologies to circulate all process flows while reducing the overall energy demand. These technologies will be offered as integrated services to produce treated rain and wastewater for internal reuse, the generation of renewable energy from biogas, compost production combined with urban gardening and for the use of nutrients in a greenhouse. The design of more efficient processes, such as green walls, innovative conservatories, building-integrated solar thermal and photovoltaic panels will improve building energy efficiency. All process flows will be intensely monitored to ensure safety and collect data for further replication cases. The solutions will also include the use of sustainable and upcycled materials and the implementation will be based on the principles of reversibility and de-constructability. The final services of the building will be elaborated in co-creation workshops with a multitude of stakeholders. Additional service-oriented modelling facilitates replication for the transition to the circular housing sector.

Circular economy in Brazilian construction industry: Current scenario, challenges and opportunities

“…Low awareness is also perceived in emerging countries, such as Vietnam (Ling and Nguyen, 2013). However, in Europe there is awareness of the need of applying CE, and case studies are widely seen in the literature (Adams et al, 2017; Bertino et al, 2019; Maerckx et al, 2019; Nijgh and Veljkovic, 2019; Ünal et al, 2019). Previous case studies enable the identification of real gaps and points of greatest effort for the effective implementation of the CE in regional civil construction.…”

Implementing Circular Economy throughout the Construction Project Life Cycle: A Review on Potential Practices and Relationships

“…Simultaneously, evaluating the existing buildings using a circularity tool is important, as found in the literature review. Bertino, Menconi [67] clearly indicated that the circularity assessment of existing buildings is critical in order to make decisions at the EOL stage. Based on these analyses, a proper plan can be developed and executed for deciding whether the building is to be reused, disassembled, or deconstructed and whether materials are recycled or disposed of [26].…”

A review of nature-based solutions for resource recovery in cities

“…The solids are co-digested together with the organic household waste in small biogas plants. The digested matter is converted to compost in a closed-vessel composting unit with in-built odour abatement (Bertino et al 2018).…”