Circular Engineering for Architecture

📰 Freshly published: ✍ "Data carriers for circular construction supply chains: An exploratory quantitative analysis" with Kaspar Stengele and Catherine De Wolf in the Journal of Cleaner Production. We started with a deceptively simple curiosity on how to choose a data carrier for circular construction supply chains, and whether there is any evidence of advantages from digital carriers (i.e. QR codes and NFC chips) over traditional direct product marking. Based on our exploratory lab-based experiment, there is! Both QR codes and NFC chips showed significantly greater efficiency and user experience than conventional DPM. These findings are particularly relevant for rolling out Digital Product Passports and for a #digitaltransformation for #circulareconomy in #construction. Check it out in the comments

Huzzah 🙌 another publication! "A Steel Element Reuse Ontology for Building Audits in Circular Construction," written by Leonhard Schönfelder, Meliha Honic, Catherine De Wolf, and myself, is in press at Developments in the Built Environment (Journal of Elsevier). Based on surveys and interviews across Switzerland, Germany, Austria, and France we sought to discover what factors are important in a pre-demolition audit for determining steel element reuse. At a high level, they include economic factors, technical factors, and the condition of the elements. All of this was compiled into a steel element reuse #ontology (SERO). This information continues to evolve as the #construction industry continues to adapt to material management challenges in a #circulareconomy, so check it out!

📢 Deadline Extension SPECIFIC for Extended Abstracts – SBE25 📢 Good news for those interested in sharing their insights at SBE25! We have decided to extend the deadline for submitting Extended Abstracts until March 9, 2025, to accommodate ongoing interest and ensure broader participation. 🔹New deadline for Extended Abstracts: March 9, 2025 (23:59 Zurich time) 🔹Full paper submissions remain due on March 2, 2025 (no further extensions). This is a great opportunity for industry professionals and researchers to contribute innovative ideas and case studies to the discussion. If you haven’t submitted yet, now is the time! Find all details and submission guidelines here: https://sbe.ethz.ch We look forward to receiving your contributions! 🚀 #SBE25 #CallForPapers #SustainableBuiltEnvironment #Conference

Prof. Catherine De Wolf will speak at the MIT Department of Architecture this week, followed by a presentation at the Yale School of Architecture as part of the symposium “Building a Planetary Solution: Regenerative Biomaterial Strategies for a Planet in Crisis,” taking place on February 20–22, 2025. At Yale, Prof. De Wolf will give the talk "Digital Management of the Circular Building Economy" as part of the panel “End of Waste? Circular Economic Substitutions / New Raw Material” on Friday, February 21. She will join a group of experts, including Eva Gladek (Metabolic), Dr. Jennifer Russell (she/her) (Virginia Tech), and Christian Gäth (Bauhaus Earth), in discussing sustainable approaches to resource consumption and circularity in the built environment. The symposium will bring together leading thinkers from architecture, engineering, climate science, and industrial ecology to explore regenerative strategies for the construction sector. Notable speakers include Alan Organschi (Director, Yale Building Lab), Karen Seto (Professor, Yale School of the Environment), Andrew Waugh (Founding Director, Waugh Thistleton Architects), and Deborah Berke (Dean, Yale School of Architecture). For more details, visit https://lnkd.in/e4h4KudD

The Reuse Pavilion CircÛbi at ETH Hönggerberg Campus has been awarded the crQlr Award 2024 - New Academy Prize. Funded by D-BAUG and D-ARCH at ETH Zürich, CircÛbi (Circular + Huber) showcases the possibilities of circular construction by reusing building components from the former Huber Pavilions, a modular structure originally built between 1987 and 1991 as temporary lecture studios on the Hönggerberg Campus. CircÛbi integrates reclaimed structural timber trusses with dry, reversible connections, offering hands-on education in circular building practices, emerging digital technologies, and interdisciplinary collaboration. For this project, Prof. Catherine De Wolf collaborated with Prof. Momoyo Kaijima and Barbara Buser. Many thanks to Dr. Federico Bertagna and Elias Knecht, and our industry partners Pascal Angehrn (baubüro insitu ag), Michael Wick (Wiederverwerckle GmbH), Christoph Angehrn, Mario Marty, and Mathis Jedele (B3 Kolb ag).  The crQlr Award judge comments: "This project redefines education in circularity, blending design, construction, and deconstruction into a hands-on experience. It showcases how digital tools can help scale circular practices, ensuring the next generation of professionals integrates these principles into their work." https://lnkd.in/evRAxeNc https://lnkd.in/e65KM9MZ #CircularConstruction #ETHZurich #Architecture #Reuse #CircularEconomy #crQlrAward #DigitalTools #Collaboration

The Reuse Pavilion CircÛbi at ETH Hönggerberg Campus has been awarded the crQlr Award 2024 - New Academy Prize. Funded by D-BAUG and D-ARCH at ETH Zürich, CircÛbi (Circular + Huber) showcases the possibilities of circular construction by reusing building components from the former Huber Pavilions, a modular structure originally built between 1987 and 1991 as temporary lecture studios on the Hönggerberg Campus. CircÛbi integrates reclaimed structural timber trusses with dry, reversible connections, offering hands-on education in circular building practices, emerging digital technologies, and interdisciplinary collaboration. For this project, Prof. Catherine De Wolf collaborated with Prof. Momoyo Kaijima and Barbara Buser. Many thanks to Dr. Federico Bertagna and Elias Knecht, and our industry partners Pascal Angehrn (baubüro insitu ag), Michael Wick (Wiederverwerckle GmbH), Christoph Angehrn, Mario Marty, and Mathis Jedele (B3 Kolb ag).  The crQlr Award judge comments: "This project redefines education in circularity, blending design, construction, and deconstruction into a hands-on experience. It showcases how digital tools can help scale circular practices, ensuring the next generation of professionals integrates these principles into their work." https://lnkd.in/evRAxeNc https://lnkd.in/e65KM9MZ #CircularConstruction #ETHZurich #Architecture #Reuse #CircularEconomy #crQlrAward #DigitalTools #Collaboration

𝗙𝗼𝗿𝘀𝗰𝗵𝘂𝗻𝗴𝘀𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗷𝗲𝗸𝘁 𝗥𝗲-𝗨𝘀𝗲 𝗺𝗶𝘁 𝗱𝗲𝗿 𝗦𝘁𝗮𝗱𝘁 𝗕𝗮𝗱𝗲𝗻: 𝗕𝗮𝘂𝘁𝗲𝗶𝗹𝘄𝗶𝗲𝗱𝗲𝗿𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘄𝗲𝗻𝗱𝘂𝗻𝗴 𝗳ü𝗿 𝗲𝗶𝗻𝗲 𝗻𝗮𝗰𝗵𝗵𝗮𝗹𝘁𝗶𝗴𝗲 𝗭𝘂𝗸𝘂𝗻𝗳𝘁 In einem gemeinsamen Projekt mit der Gruppe für ökologisches Systemdesign der ETH Zürich (Chair of Ecological Systems Design (ESD), ETH Zürich) hat intep das Potenzial der Bauteilwiederverwendung (Re-Use) auf Städteebene untersucht. Am Beispiel der Stadt Baden wurden Bauteilflüsse modelliert, Umweltwirkungen analysiert und Rahmenbedingungen für eine breite Anwendung erfasst. Die Projektfinanzierung erfolgte durch das Bundesamt für Energie BFE, das Bundesamt für Umwelt BAFU und die Stadt Baden. 🎯 Das Ziel: Die Reduktion von grauer Energie und Treibhausgasemissionen (THGE) durch Bauteilwiederverwendung. 💡 Ein zentrales Ergebnis: Re-Use allein reicht nicht aus, um die Netto-Null-Ziele im Gebäudebereich bis 2050 zu erreichen. Weitere Maßnahmen sind nötig, doch Re-Use könnte insbesondere in einer suffizienteren Gesellschaft und durch „Design for Disassembly“ an Bedeutung gewinnen. Die Stadt Baden und andere Kommunen können als Vorbilder fungieren, lokale Bauherren bei Pilotprojekten unterstützen und durch eine Re-Use-Roadmap eine zirkuläre Bauwirtschaft fördern. Auf nationaler Ebene sollten Standards zur Bauteil-Inventarisierung und Fördermaßnahmen entwickelt werden. Das Projekt zeigt, wie Bauteilwiederverwendung zur Kreislaufwirtschaft und den Klimazielen beitragen kann – ein Schritt in eine nachhaltigere Bauweise. 🌍🏙️ ℹ️ Weitere Infos zum Projekt und zu den Resultaten sind hier zu finden: https://lnkd.in/enrt92mR #ReUse #Kreislaufwirtschaft #Nachhaltigkeit #Bauwesen #Klimaziele #Bauteilwiederverwendung https://lnkd.in/enrt92mR

Please join us in welcoming Dr. Marirena Kladeftira for a guest lecture at 15h15 on 19th Nov in Kunsthalle Zürich! This lecture is part of a series organised by Prof. Dr. Catherine De Wolf for her fall 2024 course and the AI, Art and Architecture (AAA) Experiments, offering students and the public a diverse range of global insights on sustainable design and construction, and is open to the public. Marirena is an architect, researcher and educator dedicated to advancing design and making enabled by digital fabrication. Through an interdisciplinary approach, Marirena’s work investigates new potentials of material properties and design processes, and crafts synergistic relations between humans and machines during the making process. Currently, she is a postdoctoral researcher at EPFL, jointly appointed in the Lab for Creative Computation and the Structural Xploration Lab, EPFL. Her current project focuses on human-robot collaborative workflows for structural reconfiguration and reuse of damaged timber structures. She earned her Ph.D. at ETH Zürich as an NCCR DFAB fellow, leading the research on 3D-printed connections for ultralightweight spatial structures. 

♻️ Check out this great workshop, From Waste to Resource for reusing concrete waste, by our lab members, Beril Önalan, Eleftherios Triantafyllidis and Ioanna Mitropoulou!

Please join us in welcoming Dr. Marirena Kladeftira for a guest lecture at 15h15 on 19th Nov in Kunsthalle Zürich! This lecture is part of a series organised by Prof. Dr. Catherine De Wolf for her fall 2024 course and the AI, Art and Architecture (AAA) Experiments, offering students and the public a diverse range of global insights on sustainable design and construction, and is open to the public. Marirena is an architect, researcher and educator dedicated to advancing design and making enabled by digital fabrication. Through an interdisciplinary approach, Marirena’s work investigates new potentials of material properties and design processes, and crafts synergistic relations between humans and machines during the making process. Currently, she is a postdoctoral researcher at EPFL, jointly appointed in the Lab for Creative Computation and the Structural Xploration Lab, EPFL. Her current project focuses on human-robot collaborative workflows for structural reconfiguration and reuse of damaged timber structures. She earned her Ph.D. at ETH Zürich as an NCCR DFAB fellow, leading the research on 3D-printed connections for ultralightweight spatial structures. 📍 Location: Kunsthalle Zürich 📅 Date & Time: 19th Nov, 3:15pm #DigitalFabrication #ComputationalDesign #Interdisciplinary