Anne Paduart (VUB) on Circular Building Design

Anne Paduart is researcher at the TRANSFORM research group of the Vrije Universiteit Brussels (Belgium). In her PhD thesis (2012) she showed how transformable building design principles can lead to sustainable material and waste management in buildings, environmental and financial life cycle benefits and support a transition to a circular building economy. She is currently bringing her expertise in practice by prototyping innovative adaptable and reusable building solutions within the H2020 pilot project ‘Circular retrofit Lab’ in collaboration with the VUB and industrial stakeholders.

Circular Building Design departs from the idea that each building is subject to numerous changes and transformations during its life cycle and should therefore integrate strategies that prolong the use of buildings and resources in closed material loops. This presentation will discuss how architects, engineers and entrepreneurs are challenged to become more innovative within this sustainable design approach. New transformable solutions that anticipate the future dismantling, reuse and adaptation of buildings need to be developed, tested and evaluated in terms of their environmental and financial life cycle benefits.

This lecture is proposed by Corentin Fivet (SXL) as part of the AR-490 EPFL class on "construction of load-bearing systems".