Assessing the potential of building component reuse

The SXL is kicking off his recently awarded SNF project "Measures of the Reuse Potential of Architectural Components in Switzerland" this September 1st, 2020. The four-year long project will fund two PhDs, a postdoctoral researcher, as well as 10 summer interns.

Following the recent rise of environmental consciousness, the reuse of building components in new architecture projects is currently seen as a promising approach to achieve greater sustainability in the construction industry. Whereas recycling generates new products through energy-intensive transformations, reuse extends the service life of an existing product by reclaiming it as a whole, exploiting the most out of all its preexisting functional and technical features. Pushed forward by the European Union and gaining impetus in Switzerland, reuse constitutes a key strategy towards a circular economy. Yet, it is today probably the strategy that is the furthest away from being implemented in the construction practice.

This research project aims at laying the foundation for robust assessments and predictions of component reuse in architecture, both at the building scale for designers, and at the regional scale for policy makers. They will help the scientific community better direct research efforts dealing with component reuse in architecture, as well as better evaluate the impact of current and future research efforts aimed at mitigating the adverse environmental effects of the construction industry.