Form follows availability: The reuse revolution

This study links construction-related overuse of resources to design strategies that enable architects to reuse building and waste materials. The strategies are applied in a design proposal in a local Swedish context. Stakeholders and material systems have been mapped applying a systems approach; sixteen interviews with different experts have been conducted; and a methodology for finding and evaluating materials suitable for reuse has been created. Based on that, a building design proposal employing circular design transformed into the concept “Form follows availability” has been developed, taking into account locally available materials, the lifetime of the building and specified materials, and resilience against changing functions, cultural perceptions, and climatic conditions. Results show that it is difficult to design a building solely with reused materials when confined to the existing system. Still, it generates realistic design strategies demonstrating that material reuse is both possible and desirable. To facilitatematerial reuse at scale, transformation of architectural education, improved material testing and documentation, and supporting logistics are required. The benefits - reduced waste, increased cultural value, attractive aesthetics - argue for architects, clients, and contractors alike to employ material reuse as an effective means to reduce the building industry’s negative impact on the environment

How circular is current design practice? Investigating perspectives across industrial design and architecture in the transition towards a circular economy

The transition to a circular economy (CE) produces a range of new challenges for designers and requires specific knowledge, strategies, and methods. To date, most studies regarding design for a CE have been theoretical and conceptual, hence, limited research has been conducted on the practical implications of designing for a CE. Therefore, the aim of this study is to provide a better understanding of how design practitioners interpret and implement the CE concept in practice. To capture the complexity of real-world cases, semi-structured interviews were carried out with design practitioners (N\ua0=\ua012) within the disciplines of architecture and industrial design who have actively worked with circularity in a design agency setting. The results show that the practitioners have diverse perspectives on designing for a CE, relating to (1) the circular design process, (2) the effects of the CE on design agencies, (3) the changing role of the designer, and (4) the external factors affecting circular design in practice. Some differences were identified between the architects and industrial designers, with the industrial designers more strongly focused on circular business models and the architects on the reuse of materials on a building level. In addition, circular strategies and associated (similar) terminologies were understood and applied in fundamentally different ways. As the CE blurs boundaries of scale and disciplines, there is a need for universal design frameworks and language. The CE concept is expanding the scope of the design process and driving the integration of new knowledge fields and skills in the design process. The successful implementation of the CE in practice is based on extensive collaboration with stakeholders and experts throughout all stages of the design process. Design agencies have addressed the CE by establishing dedicated CE research and design teams, facilitating knowledge exchange, developing their own circular strategies and methods, and striving for long-term client relationships that foster the engagement of designers with the lifecycles of designed artefacts rather than perceiving design projects as temporary endeavors. Ultimately, a holistic and integral approach towards design in a CE is needed to ensure that the underlying CE goals of contributing to sustainable development and establishing a systemic shift are ongoingly considered

Procedural digital twin generation for co-creating in VR focusing on vegetation

An early-stage development of a Digital Twin (DT) in Virtual Reality (VR) is presented, aiming for civic engagement in a new urban development located in an area that is a forest today. The area is presently used for recreation. For the developer, it is important both to communicate how the new development will affect the forest and allow for feedback from the citizen. High quality DT models are time-consuming to generate, especially for VR. Current model generation methods require the model developer to manually design the virtual environment. Furthermore, they are not scalable when multiple scenarios are required as a project progresses. This study aimed to create an automated, procedural workflow to generate DT models and visualize large-scale data in VR with a focus on existing green structures as a basis for participatory approaches. Two versions of the VR prototype were developed in close cooperation with the urban developer and evaluated in two user tests. A procedural workflow was developed for generating DT models and integrated into the VR application. For the green structures, efforts focused on the vegetation, such as realistic representation and placement of different types of trees and bushes. Only navigation functions were enabled in the first user test with practitioners (9 participants). Interactive functions were enabled in the second user test with pupils (age 15, 9 participants). In both tests, the researchers observed the participants and carried out short reflective interviews. The user test evaluation focussed on the perception of the vegetation, general perception of the VR environment, interaction, and navigation. The results show that the workflow is effective, and the users appreciate green structure representations in VR environments in both user tests. Based on the workflow, similar scenes can be created for any location in Sweden. Future development needs to concentrate on the refinement of buildings and information content. A challenge will be balancing the level of detail for communication with residents

Towards digitalisation of socially sustainable neighbourhood design

Digital tools for performance-assessment are commonly used to shorten the feedback loop in testing designs for buildings and neighbourhoods. However, these tools do not extend to the social dimension in the same way as the economic and environmental dimensions. This paper aims to contribute to the development of digital tools to design socially sustainable neighbourhoods. We analyse 115 academic articles to establish a theoretical understanding of Social Sustainability (SoSu). Based on these results, we propose a digital user-interaction model to operationalise SoSu in the digital design process of buildings. In the literature, we observe a lack of consensus on the theoretical discussion on SoSu. Several extrinsic and intrinsic factors are identified contributing to this fuzziness; the dependency on stakeholder value systems, the qualitative nature of social indicators, and comparison to environmental sustainability being the most common. Still, we distinguish two overarching categories, social equity and social capital, that are further divided into sub-themes. Having mapped the categories and hierarchies of social themes, we propose a user-interaction model that incorporates these findings into a digital environment. The user-interaction model creates a guided decision-making framework for architects and urban planners by enabling stakeholders to make conscious and informed decisions grounded in theory

Effects of Sustainability Policy – Evaluating Social Consequences of Carbon Targets using Trip Completion Rates

Sustainability is widely recognised as having social, economic, and environmental dimensions. Strategies to combat global climate change inherently have an environmental focus. However, in line with the sustainability agenda, the social and economic dimensions must also be addressed. Evaluating the social consequences of decisions is often challenging due to a lack of relevant tools and indicators to measure and track them. This paper presents the Trip Completion Rate (TCR) as an indicator currently under development to evaluate the social consequences of climate change policies such as Personal Carbon Allowances (PCA). TCR is an accessibility indicator that evaluates the proportion of a population that can perform their daily activities against a performance metric. Two examples demonstrate the sensitivity of social impacts based on the geographic and demographic variations in different locations, one at the region level and another at the municipal level, through a national household travel survey (NHTS). The V\ue4stra G\uf6taland region of Sweden is taken as a test case to illustrate how the indicator may be used, comparing TCR on the entire region and then comparing it to TCRscalculated at the municipal level. The greenhouse gas emissions of the trips are calculated based on assumptions for different modes of transport. Finally, the results are evaluated against a hypothetical PCA based on the climate goals for the city of Gothenburg, Sweden. The results show that the ability to satisfy one\u27s daily travel needs depends on individual characteristics such as behavioural patterns of travel, travel mode choices and access to local amenities. We find that PCAs may disproportionately affect certain groups more than others. Policymakers must understand who is most affected by sustainability targets to ensure that disproportionately affected groups have an equal opportunity to achieve their daily needs and that adequatemeasures are taken to mitigate the local policy effects on social equity

Pending for Renovations: Understanding the Conditions of the Multi-family Housing Stock from before 1945

AbstractThe Swedish housing stock is once again in focus for national energy savings, as it was after the oil crises in the 1970s and 1980s. The contemporary debate has a one-sided focus on energy savings and barriers for implementation of existing energy efficient renovation measures but also on large stock of industrialized housing built after 1960. The need for renovation is equally urgent in older stocks of housing, also in those that already have been renovated but are in need for further interventions. In this paper we focus on multi-residential housing built before 1945 in Gothenburg, Sweden, representing cultural and historical heritage values. The opportunities to ensure high energy efficiency with new measures in a second renovation should aim to find a balance with heritage values, social values, function, aesthetics and management aspects. In order to get an understanding of the conditions of the stock in focus, we apply both a top-down and bottom-up approach. In the top-down approach, data are gathered from different sources such as energy performance certificates, the national property register, and geodata from the City of Gothenburg. By combining information from these databases, three data subsets have been defined for the bottom-up approach: non-renovated buildings, buildings renovated to a small extent and buildings renovated to a large extent. Three case study buildings were selected out of these data subsets. The choice of renovation strategy differs between the cases. Case study building 1 has been left virtually untouched while case study building 2 and 3 have been renovated to different extent. The next step in this research project is to identify suitable renovation alternatives for these building typologies

Transdisciplinary Research in the Built Environment: A Question of Time

In this article, we reflect on 14 years of experience with transdisciplinary research in the built environment. We critically consider challenges and pitfalls in relation to normative definitions of transdisciplinary research derived from the literature. Our experiences from five transdisciplinary research projects are presented with a focus on each project’s aim, size, organization of work, and funding. Results show that different kinds of transdisciplinary research approaches co-exist and that these can serve different purposes and situations. In most cases, transdisciplinary projects lead to raised levels of awareness of the complexity of real-world problems among participating partners. In some cases, the outcome is a useful innovation, in order to support such innovation, a focus on real cases is encouraged. However, there might be a trade-off between the focused attention on a real case and the maintained interest among diverse participants in a larger project. An important insight is that innovation and knowledge development through transdisciplinary settings take time. It is favourable for the development of networks, common visions, trust, and innovation if consecutive transdisciplinary projects can be arranged with the same partners. We conclude the article by providing practical guidelines to support the management of transdisciplinary projects

Multidimensional evaluation of tenants’ temporal relocation during a renovation: A comparison between two case studies from Sweden

This research focuses on the tenants’ temporal relocation or stay in the home during renovation works and the property owners’ possibility to refurbish with intense and global interventions. The study compares two renovation strategies applied in two residential neighbourhoods in Gothenburg, Sweden, built between the 1950s and 1960s. In one neighbourhood, the tenants stayed in their homes during the renovation works, and in the other neighbourhood, the tenants were relocated to other buildings for over six months. Retrofitting interventions, investment costs, rent increase, time periods and the constructive processes are considered for each renovation strategy, as well as the impressions of the tenants and property owner entities in each neighbourhood were collected. The results compare, through a report on the affordability and effectiveness, the pros and cons of a relocation or non-relocation strategy. This research offers a real and experimental comparison that reach to political, architectural, social and economic conclusions to facilitate the decision-making regarding the tenants’ temporal relocation. Finally, it is also highlighted the need to involve the tenants in the design of effective renovation proposals