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Thursday, March 27, 2025
Circular Economy and Designs for Disassembly
Oregon Ballroom 202Moderator:
WOODCIRCLES: Harvesting the Urban Forest
The construction sector is responsible for over 35% of the EU’s total waste generation, and accounts for about 50% of all extracted resources and an estimated at 5-12% of total GHG emissions. WOODCIRCLES is an EU-funded research project of experts from across the value chain whose goal is to develop innovative circular solutions for sustainable wood construction to help reduce Europe’s dependence on non-renewable resources, cut GHG emissions, reduce waste generation, and offer long-term carbon sinks and substitution of fossil-based and carbon- intensive products.
Based on identified needs and market potentials, the consortium is developing new value-added value chains for upcycling of wood waste materials and optimized design-for-disassembly building system solutions to significantly increase recycling rates of wood in construction.
An ‘Urban Sawmill’ sorting and production facility capable of turning in-homogenous low value wood construction waste into a standardized homogenous value-added, cost-effective baseline product, will be prototyped.
WOODCIRCLES will integrate digital tools and solutions in all developments and create digital twins for the large-scale, real-life demonstrators — the Urban Sawmill and the building system prototypes to demonstrate the benefits of digital technology for circular construction.
Designing for Disassembly (DfD): Exploring Future Potential through Existing Case Studies to Expand Material Lifespans
The global building and construction industry annually contributes approximately 40% of energy-related carbon dioxide emissions. The greatest source of emissions associated with building materials comes through their production and their eventual end-of-life. The ongoing early adoption of mass timber in the United States presents an opportunity to revisit how we design, build, and ultimately replace buildings. Designing for disassembly will allow a second life for mass timber members that have been thoughtfully and intentionally designed as such, offering the potential to ‘harvest’ mass timber from buildings as we harvest timber from forests now. Extending the life of these structural building members will allow future project teams to reduce the embodied carbon emissions associated with their projects and keep functional members from reaching their end-of-life.
Jake Elbrecht
Auburn University
The Future is Deconstruction: A 2050 Vision
Our bet: In 2050, deconstruction, rather than demolition, will be the default. In this presentation and panel discussion, deconstruction will be examined from the perspective of experts in circular economy, design and engineering, and the tools needed to support it. Ramboll, Holmes, and Urban Machine will jointly explore the many trends and drivers for deconstruction and reuse, from a policy, reporting, decarbonization, resource and real estate scarcity, and tax perspective. We will introduce how, to date, the wrecking-ball approach to demolition has prohibited the circular use of materials and represents incredible value leakage, including sending valuable materials to landfill.
Case studies and examples will be presented, from municipalities that have required deconstruction to ambitious projects propelled by goals of embodied carbon reduction or material reuse. Project planning, design, engineering, and detailing strategies that can be applied by the audience will be outlined by the panel. Technologies that support deconstruction will be discussed, showcasing how technology can facilitate sustainable solutions and inspire the adoption of circular practices in the built environment. This includes digital twins of buildings, material passports, and Urban Machine’s robot that separates metal from deconstructed wood for maximum reuse.
