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Product development and building design are currently not aligned. A building product may be designed to be disassembled into technological and biological resources (cf. Cradle-to-Cradle) but if it is not installed in a proper way on the building site (e.g. by gluing it to other building components), the aim of easy separation is impeded. In addition, a building can be designed to be easily transformed in order to extend the (functional) service life of the building. However, if building components are not designed to be reused or recycled at the end of the service life of the building, building products will still end up as waste. As a result of this, design paradigms on product and building level need to be integrated, to make buildings fully reusable, combined with B2C and C2B materials and components trade.
There is a lack of design guidelines and instruments helping the building designer to evaluate and communicate the transformation capacity and reuse potential of the building and its parts during the early design stages.
(L = long-term perspective; S = short-term perspective; B = within the BAMB project)
Open industrialisation (L), in which standardisation agreements concerning modular dimensions of components and connections are made within the entire building sector, will facilitate the use of (pre-assembled) building components coming from different manufacturers into multiple configurations and for different applications … even beyond the building sector. Similar to the car industry where open industrialisation is already applied, this doesn’t necessarily affect the designer’s freedom. On the contrary, the building and product designer can create multiple configurations, without being tied to a specific building system or supplier.
The manufacturing of building products needs to be brought closer to the designer and end user (S–L). New additive manufacturing techniques, such as 3D printing, are becoming increasingly popular within the built environment, thanks to their ability to accurately construct complex and customised architectural components, with low labour costs, less production waste and a short construction period. It also offers remanufacturing possibilities, when building components need to be replaced by products not available on the market anymore. Is customisation in contradiction with open industrialisation? No, it isn’t! 3D printing can perfectly match dimensional standardisation rules for prefabricated components and will especially be useful for the design of new dry jointing.
In order to build-up experiences within circular economy, reversible building design and the use of ‘big data’ within computer-aided design (CAD), both students and professionals in architectural engineering, construction and facility management, need to be encouraged to embark in life-long learning initiatives (S–L). Such initiatives will include practical design and construction guidelines, assessment and decision-making instruments, the use of Materials Passports and Building Information Management (BIM), as well as experiences from up-to-date good and bad practices. Policy administrations and knowledge institutes will play an important role in providing objective and transparent information (S–L).
The development of a Materials Passport Platform (B) is already a way to exchange knowledge and expertise within the building practice and user community; i.e. through electronic and interoperable data sets that collect characteristics of materials and assemblies, enabling suppliers, designers and users to capture the highest possible value and guide all materials towards reuse into new applications.
Based on the prototyping actions (B) within the BAMB project, the development of user-friendly reversible building design tools together with software developers (S), should enable building (system) designers to enhance the transformation capacity and reuse potential of buildings and their sub systems.
The development of Reversible Building Design Protocols (B) will guide architects and engineering firms to make proper design decisions regarding the transformation capacity and reuse potential of buildings and their constituting parts. Furthermore, these two design indicators will be used as communication instrument along the value network.
Experimenting with the use of materials passports and reversible building design protocols needs to be done in pilot projects (B–S). Not only will these practical experiments provide the necessary proof-of-concept(s), but they will also provide feedback to prepare these instruments for a broader use.
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