Session
TU.1.A || Circular Economy Buildings – from Research to Practice

Authors
Kayaçetin, Cihan; Verdoodt, Stijn; Leferve, Lode; Versele, Alexis

Abstract
The construction industry is one of the largest sectors that possesses great potential for mitigating environmental and social impacts. Research efforts on sustainability construction have been supported with current regulations. The Circular Economy Action Plan of the EU suggests to adopt circular principles and bio-based material use, whereas several countries introduced embodied impact assessments into construction processes. Within this con-text, the Interreg Circular Bio-Based Construction Industry (CBCI) project develops a comprehensive approach including technical, economical, legal, social aspects, and business models for better integration of emerging principles such as circular, industrialized and design-build-finance-operate with bio-based technologies. In the course of the project, a prototype house called the Living Lab (LL) Ghent will be constructed in order to display the research outputs in a real setting. During the design phase of the LL, a comprehensive analysis was conducted to evaluate the environmental impacts and circular principles such as design-for-disassembly, use of bio-based, reused or recycled materials. For the analysis, nine preliminary designs (PD) for building envelope were generated, based on three basic construction methods: masonry, light-weight steel construction and wood framing supplemented with bio-based construction methods. During this analysis, several circularity tools were utilized and combined with a life cycle assessment (LCA) study. This paper focuses on the close relationship between the circularity tools and LCA methodology. It was seen that the LCA methodology provides solid outputs on the environmental impact that is originating from building materials but there is not a well-defined method for incorporating circularity aspects related to building components. The aim is to develop an integrated decision support during design phase of circular and bio-based buildings.