Reimagining design as a transformative practice for realizing a circular built environment is both urgent and important. Many of today's resource problems can be traced back to the way constructions are being designed. The adoption of circular design practices may alleviate these problems. Most previous research has either mapped the boundaries of contemporary circular design practices or pushed those boundaries with new interventions. The lived experiences of designers are, however, often overlooked. Little remains known about what it is like to be engaged in and how to ‘live through’ circular design. This study therefore seeks to understand the practice from the perspective of designers themselves. Through applying an interpretative phenomenological analysis to unstructured interview data collected from ten frontrunning Dutch designers, it explores both the what and how of circular design. Four emergent themes were found that illuminate the experience itself. Circular design is, accordingly, interpreted as a practice which: proclaims responsibility towards the Earth, materializes future-oriented solutions, deals with a multi-headed monster, and involves orchestrating a design ecosystem. These themes are illustrated with narrative accounts of designers' actual experiences. The rich, in-depth insights offer ample learning opportunities to better understand and facilitate unfolding circularity transitions. Circular design is, as such, theorized as a vital practice that can shape the built environment through materializing responsible futures.@en

Digitalization is driving innovation towards a circular economy in various industries—but the construction industry is lagging behind. The building industry, a growth sector due to increasing urbanization, is at the same time actively depleting our resources, generating waste, and emitting greenhouse gases at a tremendous scale and speed. This chapter argues that we must urgently shift from a linear take–make–waste model to a circular one whereby we utilize our resources wisely and keep them from becoming waste. The experience of reusing the glass from the Centre Pompidou in Paris, France, confronted the architects with the many challenges we face when renovating a building with circular principles. Finding architects to use the iconic bent glass instead of crushing it for recycling (or worse, for disposing it in a landfill) turned out to be a time-consuming task. Adopting artificial intelligence and digital information sharing to match materials for reuse with people who can reuse them is exactly what the construction industry needs for a paradigm shift towards circularity.@en

The digitization and automation of contracts within the built environment through blockchain has demonstrated potential. Nonetheless, the use of on-chain smart contracts can amount to substantial costs. This study proposes a blockchain-governed approach to individually assess whether and how to use blockchain for different components of contracts. We explain the rationale behind the concept and implement a pilot prototype of a performance-based, blockchain-governed contract. The results promise an alternative and more cost-effective approach to smart or intelligent contracts in the built environment, while still allowing for trusted verification of key contract parts through blockchain.@en

Regenerative approaches have gained attention in the built environment, but remain highly conceptual. This position paper argues for new regenerative governance structures that consider data governance, reassess complex stakeholder interactions, and ensure the inclusivity of diverse values and ownership. It then presents early ideas on how blockchain technology could facilitate scalable socio-economic-ecologic interactions along three inquiries, giving practical examples. Overall, the paper aims to inspire and guide further research into the development of modern digital governance tools fostering a regenerative built environment.@en

The application of the circular economy (CE) in the building industry is critical for achieving the carbon reduction goals defined in the Paris Agreement and is increasingly promoted through European policies. In recent years, CE strategies have been applied and tested in numerous building projects in practice. However, insights into their application and decarbonisation potential are limited. This study analysed and visualised 65 novel real-world cases of new build, renovation, and demolition projects in Europe compiled from academic and grey literature. Cases were analysed regarding the circular solution applied, level of application in buildings, and decarbonisation potential reported, making this study one of the first comprehensive studies on the application and decarbonisation potential of circular strategies in the building industry in practice. The identified challenges of using LCA for CE assessment in buildings are discussed and methodological approaches for future research are suggested.

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To address the need for a shift from a linear to a circular economy in the built environment, this paper develops a semi-automated assistive process for planning building material deconstruction for reuse using sensing and scanning, Scan-to-BIM, and computer vision techniques. These methods are applied and tested in a real-world case study in Geneva, Switzerland, with a focus on reconstruction and recovery analysis for floor beam systems. First, accessible sensing and scanning tools, such as mobile photography and smartphone-based consumer-grade Lidar devices, are used to capture imagery and other data from an active demolition site. Then, photogrammetry and point cloud data analysis are performed to construct a 3D BIM model of relevant areas. The structural relationships between reconstructed BIM elements are evaluated to score the feasibility for recovery of each element. This study illustrates what is feasible and where further development is necessary for automating building material reuse planning at scale to increase the uptake of circular economy practices in the construction sector.

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This article proposes a conceptual model to address the structural holes in data sharing between (and beyond) actors in the circular built environment supply chain and monitoring circular economy progress. Current digital innovations such as material passports and Building Information Modelling applications aim at increasing quality and availability of information about materials and their application in buildings to facilitate future reuse or recycling, based on the idea of buildings-as-material-banks. Although these approaches offer great potential to recover value from building materials, they mainly focus on a single building and have a limited capacity to exchange data with other supply chain actors in a timely manner. In this article, we argue that there is a need for an integrated digital infrastructure that expands beyond the industries and countries for enabling a connected global circular economy. Therefore, this article proposes an initial conceptualization of a digital infrastructure towards achieving a circular built environment. The proposed model puts forward three interoperable components: The Data Pipeline, Passport Generator, and Passport Pool, based on emerging technologies such as blockchain technology, the Internet of Things and artificial intelligence.@en