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Buildings represent over a third of global anthropogenic greenhouses emissions. Most of the embodied environmental impacts of buildings are related to the linear processes of raw material extraction, production, construction, demolition and disposal without considering all stages of building material life and its reuse. While circular economy principles of ‘reduce-(repair)-reuse-recycle’ are becoming more and more applied due to the environmental crisis, the current approach to reduce the environmental impact of the construction industry is mainly focused on recycling. However, recycling involves energy usage for reprocessing of materials and may not always be the best solution for material with high embodied energy, such as metal or plastic. In contrast, reusing material has the potential to further reduce environmental impact because less energy is spent for reprocessing.
Track A (Research)
Designers and builders must also be aware of the environmental implications of their design specifications; the work here adds to a body of knowledge concerned with carbon footprint and embodied energy demand.This track focus on a life cycle assessment (LCA) to compare impacts of different building system. This research delves into developing strategies to quantify environmental footprints of a building system in all stages of design, fabrication and assembly to evaluate the process and objectively asses the environmental benefits gained when reusing the building elements system.
Track B (Design Research)
Reuse requires unconventional strategies in design and fabrication to deal with non-standardized materials. This track focus on the architectural implementation of the reuse and conceptual development how non- standardized objects can be used again in the construction system. A series of explorations to find possible implantations of computational design algorithm in combination with digital fabrication can augment the design and construction process for non-standardized material.
