Home as a service. A new circular financial and building model of Social Housing.

HOME as a SERVICE Rethinking a circular financial and building model of Social Housing for the development of more sustainable, affordable and flexible cities

Politecnico di Milano School of Architecture, Urban Planning, Construction Engineering Faculty of Architecture and Urban Design Master Thesis, A.A. 2019-2020 In collaboration with: University of Southern Denmark

Camilla Vertua - 918712 Supervisor: Prof. Alessandra Zanelli Co-supervisor: Ass. Prof. Nebojsa Jakica

(1) Ellen MacArthur Foundation (2015), SUN and McKinsey Center for Business and Environment, Growth Within: a circular economy vision for a competitive Europe (2) McKinsey Center for Business and Environment, J. Woetzel, S. Ram, J. Mischke, N. Garemo, S. Sankhe (edited by) (2014), A blueprint for addressing the global affordable housing challenge, October

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ABSTRACT

Cities all around the world are facing major challenges when it comes to rapid urbanisation, ageing populations, loneliness, climate change and lack of affordable housing. The construction sector has a great impact on the environment, as just in Europe up to 30-40% of urban solid waste is construction and demolition waste (1).

Moreover, a third of urban dwellers, corresponding to 1.6 billion people, could struggle to secure decent housing by 2025 (2).

Therefore, thinking about an alternative affordable and sustainable construction method becomes crucial.

In this concern, over recent decades the concept of sustainability and of Circular Economy strongly enter the industrial sector as well as the architectural one. Still the theme is an on-going process though, asking for more innovation both in technological and business terms.Therefore, starting from a general overview about the topic of sustainability and environmentalism and their evolution over time, the thesis focuses on the theme of Circular Economy and of Design for Disassembling, in order to finally design an innovative model for developing sustainable, affordable and liveable homes and cities.

For this reason, the work faces the concept of circular architecture from different perspectives and scales through an inter-disciplinary and comprehensive approach, combining urbanism, architecture, technology and business, with the potential to tackle some of the biggest challenges of the global housing crisis.

The thesis then proposes a model to rethink how we design, build, finance and share our future homes, neighbourhoods and cities, in order to allow for cheaper homes to enter the market, make it easier to live sustainably and affordably, and ensure more fulfilling ways of living together.

Therefore, it envisions: .A modular concrete building system designed for disassembly, that can be prefabricated, flat-packed and assembled on site. This ensures a more sustainable and CO2-reducing construction method, high degree of space adaptability over time and a circular approach to the management and life cycle of our buildings combined to durability. .A liveable double skin facade being the strategic element that characterises the overall building system.

It provides space flexibility and adaptability for the user, while proposing each time a renovation of the aesthetic of design for disassembly due to its system independency. .A new financial model based on the concept of Building in Leasing that lowers the entry point to the housing market, making high quality housing affordable for users of all income classes, while re-establishing the connection between producers, developers and consumers.

The model is finally tested over three different housing typologies fostering a different idea of social housing each.

In this way, the Home as a model has the potential to tackle some of the biggest challenges of the global housing crisis, making housing affordable and liveable, making segments of city attractive and catchy, reducing the environmental footprint of buildings and helping municipal and national governments to reply in a rapid manner to housing demand in dynamically changing planetary and economic times.

In this way the right to housing and the right of being sustainable coincide and provide an alternative to live our future cities.

Key-words. Circular Economy, Design for Disassembling, Affordable Housing, New Building System, New Financial System, Housing Typologies.

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CONTENTS Introduction ... 8 Phase I. Background ...17 Sustainability: potentialities of an innovative tradition ... 18 Designing the alternative: innovative construction method ... 34 Planning the alternative: innovative business models ... 46 Considerations about the future ... 64

Phase II. The project ... 69 Toward the design project ... 70 Case studies ... 77 Home as a service: a new building system ... 108 Home as a service: a new financial system ... 128 Social housing: design applications ... 138

Final considerations ...179 Bibliography and sitography ... 184

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Introduction

“Technology is the answer, but what was the question?”

-C.Price, 1966-

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The goal of the thesis is the development of a flexible, adaptable and replicable social housing model built through the principles of Design for Disassembly and Adaptability, in order to overcome the historic dichotomy between natural and anthropic space and to define a human settlement in one solution of spatial continuity and interchange with the environment it belongs to.

(1) The German biologist Ernest Haekel, a great admirer of Charles Darwin, coined this definition in 1866. In R. Pavia, EcoLogics in R. Pavia (edited by) (2012), Eco-Logics. Design and Ecology, LIst Lab Laboratorio, Trento (2) H. Arendt (1958), The human condition, Chicago, University of Chicago Press (3) M. Foucault (1976), History of Sexuality, Penguin Books, 2020 (4) https://www.footprintnetwork.org (5) United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Inclusive United Cities for All: Affordable Housing and Homelessness, 31 October 2019, New York (6) C. Monticelli (2013), Life cycle design in architettura. Progetto valutazione di impatto ambientale dalla materia all’edificio, Maggioli Editore

Built and natural world are part of the same organism. To get their reciprocal relation, the concept of environment need to flee from a purely environmentalistic vision, where it represents the only object to be examined, deeply known, designed and planned, for an ecological perspective, as it is analysed according to its relation with a reference entity: the human settlement. In this concern, the term ecology, from the two Greek words oikos (home, domestic environment…) and logos (discourse, tradition, study…) means, at least according to its original definition of 1866, the study of relations of living beings between one another and with their environment (1).

Actually over times, starting from Reinassance, men had progressively differentiate themselves from the rest of living beings, based on their ability to take rational decisions. In this regard, Hannah Arendt (1958), speaking about bio politics, identifies the concepts of zoe as the world of animals, and of bios as the life of the polis, characterised by the presence of logos.

Two different detached entities (2). This is paradigmatic of a general trend, reinforced over Modernity, based on an anthropocentric view of the world, that legitimises the shift from an abstract and absolute idea of oikos, intended as nature that silently reproduces, to an oikos mediated by language and by processes of civilisation, transparent, measurable and potentially under control. In fact, even if for ages man has been a living animal, able of leading a political life, the Modern man is rather an animal who questions through his politics his life as a living being (3), strengthening the differentiation between his naked life and his public one.

This general sentiment of detachment and overcoming from and of nature has progressively generated those conditions that today put a strain on the existence of this rigid contraposition and make us reflect on the necessity of balancing again these two spheres, nature and human kind, as they’re not just coexisting but also interdependent.

Today the global environmental situation is alarming. According to Global Footprint Network

(4) by 2050 our survival will require the equivalent of two planets. Architecture and urbanism are not isolated from the problem, as they have normally a great impact on the environment.

In this regard, 30-40% of the demand for energy in the European Union is consumed by the building industry. Moreover, by the mid-21st century city-dwellers may reach 80% of the entire population, slated to reach at this point 9 billion people. This fact thus poses several sustainability challenges related to affordable housing, environment, migration, infrastructure and basic services such as education, health, safe drinking water, and sanitation, food security, decent jobs, and safety (5).

The decisive node thus becomes the level of awareness and the capacity to make forecast possessed by the historical actor with respect to the effects of his actions within the environment.There is the urgency of rethinking the architectural design process and of

creating an integrated and systemic project, that relates completely to its environmental, spatial and functional context (6) and to find an alternative and integral way to design and construct, where the project can be assumed as an advantage, as a regenerative strength for the environment, and not as a fall-back.

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In view of that, its success and quality depends on several interrelated social, economic and environmental impacts, both at an urban and architectural scale. The environmental issue, as a conservation problem, is everyone’s problem and responsibility, as it impacts reality as a whole, with no distinction between humankind and nature, individual and society, place and ecosphere (7).

As a direct consequence, it becomes central in every field of our life the concept of sustainability, intended as the research of all those interrelations connecting natural and socio-economic systems in order to find tools and strategies providing their correct management later on.

To this concern, in industry as well as in architecture emerges the business model of Circular Economy and the related assessment method called Life Cycle Assessment.

At the base of these concepts there is a methodology that stimulates upcycling and upgrading products’ residual value, by giving products a new function or application (8). Circular Economy stemmed from the end of the ‘60s in US and was then imported in Europe during the decade after (9), characterised by the first energetic crisis and by the first reports about the theme of the limit of resources (Limits of growth by the Club of Rome, for instance, belongs to 1972).

Firstly largely developed into the industrial sector, due also to marketing strategies focused on green production, it has finally attained to the construction field just in recent years, with the aim to promote an integral method to rethink architecture in a green way, rather than just through palliative actions based on reductionism. The urgency in fact of remediating to a critical situation too many times made men forgive about the real problem (10).

In architecture, Circular Economy shapes through the fundamental concept of Design for Disassembly and for Adaptability, based on the principles of maintenance, flexibility and selective dismantling/ disassembling. In this framework, the constructed project is conceived as a part of the overall design process, that comprises all the phases of collection, assessment, management, reassembly/ recycling of buildings’ materials and components. Its final aim is the closing of loops of resources, in order to avoid completely materials’ wastes. The building project can be perceived as part of a metabolism involving its surrounding urbanity and for this reason, in view of Design for Disassembly, it shall become the project of the building performance over its entire life cycle (6). Architecture shouldn’t strive anymore for everlasting, but shall be based on different degrees of durability, through adaptability and flexibility, in order to be able potentially to reply to whatever change.

Therefore, the thesis focuses on the design of an innovative model for developing sustainable, affordable and liveable homes and it has the aim to display an alternative construction method based on Design for Disassembly and for Adaptability, potentially tackling some of the biggest challenges of the global environmental and housing crisis.

In this regard, the work faces the concept of Circular Economy from different perspectives and scales with an inter-disciplinary and comprehensive approach, combining urbanism, architecture and technology. It fosters a rethinking of how we design, build, finance and share our homes, neighbourhoods and cities, in order to allow for cheaper homes to enter the market, make it easier to live sustainably and affordably, and ensure more fulfilling ways of living together.

Therefore, into an urban framework fostering a new financial model aimed to lower the entry point to the housing market, the work envisions a new model of that has the aim to be adaptable, affordable, replicable but still customisable and qualitative.

In fact, it specifically envisions:

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(7) V. Giacomini and V. Romani (1984), Uomini e parchi, Franco Angeli, Milano (8) W. McDonough and M. Braungart (2009), Cradle to Cradle. Re-making the way we make things, Vintage Books, London (9) G. L. Baldo, M. Marino, S. Rossi (2005), Analisi del ciclo di vita; materiali, prodotti, processi, Edizioni Ambiente, Milano (10) A. Campioli, in C. Monticelli (2013), Life cycle design in architettura. Progetto valutazione di impatto ambientale dalla materia all’edificio, Maggioli Editore

. A modular concrete building system designed for disassembly, that can be prefabricated, flat-packed and assembled on site.

This ensures a more sustainable and CO2-reducing construction method, high degree of space adaptability over time and a circular approach to the management and life cycle of our buildings combined to durability. . A liveable double skin facade being the strategic element that characterises the overall building system.

Earth overshoot day, 1970-2020, Global Footprint.

It provides space flexibility and adaptability for the user, while proposing each time a renovation of the aesthetic of design for disassembly due to its system independency.

Paradoxically, Covid-19 has caused Humanity’s Ecological Footprint to contract by 3 weeks.

However, true sustainability that allows all thrive on Earth can only be achieved by design, not disaster.

This model is finally tested over three different housing typologies fostering a different idea of social housing each.

. A new financial model based on the concept of Building in Leasing that lowers the entry point to the housing market, making high quality housing affordable for users of all income classes, while re-establishing the connection between producers, developers and consumers.

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The structure of the thesis will be divided into 2 main phases.

The first part regards the phase of research and analysis. It will serve as a background to introduce the reader to topics as sustainability, ecology, circular economy and Design for Disassembly. It will first explain their general evolution over time, in industry, society as well as architecture. Finally, it will deepen the concept of circular buildings and Design for Disassembly: its meaning, its evolution, its implications, both in architectural and urban terms.

The second phase will focus on the project.

In the framework of a new financial system aimed at lowering the entry point to the housing market thanks to the use of the business model of leasing in the public procurement construction sector, the thesis displays the design phase and the components of a new modular social housing system, designed in view of further disassembling. A way to raise the quality of public housing without compromising with affordability and sustainability.

Then, finally, the thesis will display some possible applications on diverse social housing typologies, demonstrating the potential replicability of this system and the different roles the Liveable Double Skin Facade can assume.

To conclude, it proposes a final review of considerations, made with in mind the previous phases of research and design, in order to set possible further studies and resolutions concerning the project.

A new beginning, rather than an end.

Most of this research has been developed over a period of around 8 months at Syddansk Universitet, in Odense, Denmark. The possibility to be involved in the Faculty of Civil and Architectural Engineering and to work directly with Prof. Hugo Mulder and Prof. Nebojsa Jakica, together with the constant support of Prof. Alessandra Zanelli from Politecnico of Milan, gave me over months lots of inputs for the development of the work and I hope I’ll be able to transmit them in a clear way as well.

In conclusion, the same logos that leaded to the detachment of humankind from nature can be today the one that marks again their tight interdependency. In the end, in fact, it’s the logos we own the one which binds human to nature in the mode of openness and difference.

Without logos there is no place, only habitat; no domus only niche; no finitude, but only the endless reproductive cycle of species-being; no dwellings but only subsisting. (11) We mustn’t forget though how much it depends on its contrary, the illogic of environment, as, as in a linguistic, it’s exactly the specificity, the rigidity of language that may become that element that stops human evolution (12).

(11) R. P. Harrison, (1993), Forests.

The shadow of civilization, University of Chicago Press, Chicago (12) A. Pennisi and A. Falzone (2010), Il prezzo del linguaggio: Evoluzione ed estinzione nelle scienze cognitive, il Mulino, Bologna Next page: Studio 1, Faculty of Civil and Architectural Engineering, University of Southern Denmark, Odense, September 2020

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evolution stability

Building lifecycle

Subscription cycle

Assemble

Housing subscription

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Re-use Re-cycle

Use

€ Housing unsubscription

Periodical payment

Home Disassemble

Circular Economy as the way to solve the ecological and housing issue

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PHASE I

Background. Men have to relate to environment since ever. Nevertheless, with the passing of time and the evolution of techniques, man has lost sight of his connection with nature, leading progressively to the generation of an artificial world, completely detached from the natural one. The situation of environmental crisis we are facing today asks men to rethink this relation, that needs to be urgently balanced. The building sector, due to its impacts on the environment, have a central role to lead and direct this change.

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Sustainability: potentialities of an innovative tradition “In my world, this is a rubber duck. It comes in California with a warning: “This product contains chemicals normed by the State of California to cause cancer and birth defects to the reproductive tract.”

This is a bird. What kind of culture would produce a product of this kind and then label it and sell it to children?

I think we have a design problem.”

-W. McDonough, 2005-

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Men had always to relate to their environment. Nevertheless, with the passing of time and the evolution of techniques, men lost sight of their connection to nature, leading progressively to the generation of an artificial world, completely detached from the natural one. The situation of environmental crisis we are facing today asks men to rethink this relation, that needs to be urgently balanced. The building sector, due to its impacts on the environment, have a central role to lead and direct the change. . The relation men-environment: cohabitation or occupation?

(1) A. Corboz (1983), The land as a palimpsest, Ecole polytechnique fédérale, Zurich, september, https://doi. org/10.1177/039219218303112102 (2) R. Welford (1995), Environmental strategy and Sustainable Development I, Routledge, London (3) P. Samson (1995), The Concept of Sustainable Development, in mailto:gci@ unige.ch, Copyright & Copy, Green Cross International (4) Leader of Suquamish and Duwamish who pursued a path of accommodation to white settlers in America.

(5) J. Robertson (1985), Future work: Jobs, self-employment and leisure after the industrial age, Gower/Maurice Temple Smith, Aldershot (6) J. Watson (2020), in Indigenous technologies “could change the way we design cities” says environmentalist Julia Watson, Amy Frearson, 11th of February, www.dezeen.com

Land has always been the result of a process, either natural or human. Since the beginning of time people has occupied and transformed it, either by filling or by extracting, with the aim to plan a logic in the apparently illogic of natural life cycles. Generally, lands in traditional civilisations, concerned not to disturb the order of the world and even desirous of helping to maintain it, were a living body of divine nature to whom cultic homage was paid (1). Humans embrace nature trying first to understand it, through representation, (the ancient Lascaux caves are an example of this), and rationalisation, (as in the case of Stonehenge, with a passage from pure representation to invention). Land was (and it is still today) a project setting a collective relation between that topographic surface and the population who has to establish in. Ancient populations used to perceive themselves as part of a cosmic and cyclical order, fostering an idea of posterity that was not just referring to a future event, but also to the past. In this regard, an old Kenyan saying used to go: We didn’t inherit the Earth from our parents: we borrowed it from children (2), while Samson (3), reports how the idea of sustainable development has already been present into Sumerian, Mediterranean and Maya societies. In more recent times, James Robertson trusted chief Seattle (4) with this words: (…) This we know. All things are connected.

Whatever befalls the Earth, befalls the son of the Earth. Man did not weave the web of life. He is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself. (5) Ways of living necessarely used to depend directly on the belonging context. Local materials or natural energy were employed worldwide before technological advancements in construction.

Sustainability wasn’t a choice but rather a fact, an unconscious way to be.

An obligation that generated innovation as, for instance, the 12th Century Cambodian temple complex Angkor Wat, a rainwater irrigation system that collected water during monsoon season to farm rice during the drier months; or the Persian engineering windcatchers enabling natural ventilation.

With the passing of time and the advancement of technology, men succeeded in redesigning landscapes in different ways, attuned to their needs, either modifying the topography of production or affecting the form of land. The drainage interventions of 10th and 11th century on the Po River plain by Benedictines or the replacement of oaks with pines in central Europe are just two well-known examples.

With the beginning of Renaissance, the role of nature changes though and a process of aesthetization begins, with a consequent sentiment of progressive detachment from it. For the first time men were able to represent in an exact way their surrounding world thanks to the invention of perspective, starting somehow to “handle” it. The epitaph of Raffaello is exemplar of this general mood, as it states: Da Lui la Natura temette di essere vinta (Nature feared to be by him overcame).

This period of tireless innovation led to a constant question of what will come next, in a state of faithful belief in human abilities.

The transition from the previous mindset of nature as a threat, to humans as saviours of nature

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instead, became even stronger over the age of Enlightenment (6).

In this regard, over the last centuries of Ancient Regime two opposite ideas on the relation man had with his surrounding environment took shape. On one side, sciences started to consider nature as an mere object, which men can, and even must, exploit for their own profit (1); On the other, Romanticism began to consider it as a sort of pedagogue of the human soul (…) as a mystic being which carried on an unending dialogue with men, (…) as a subject (1).

Both these visions, even if so different, were actually marking a further detachment. Nature was finally perceived as something alien, either object or subject, different from the life cycle humanity belonged to.

The development of tourism in 19th century is way exemplar of this mindset. An extreme will of contemplation of the so-called sublime, a radical research for the panoramic, is the same that caused the construction of hotels, cog railways and steam boats. (…) the farther the view carries and the more panoramic it is, the more it satisfies the need to dominate by derisively opposing the individual to the planet’s mass. (1) Progressively this mindset, transferred into the social economic reality of nascent liberalism, led to the overcoming of the concept of posterity in favour of immediate economic growth, defining the upcoming Industrial Revolution with its linear production chain.

Industrialists, engineers, and designers started to try to solve problems taking immediate advantage from them, in a period they used to consider of unprecedented opportunities and of massive and rapid change. (7) At bottom Industrial Revolution was an economic revolution and it was based on the essential aim to get the greatest volume of goods to the largest number of people. Due to the really low level of awareness on its impact on nature, massive production wasn’t seen as something problematic, environmentally speaking. In fact, natural resources were still considered infinite and perpetually regenerative. Even Ralph Waldo Emerson, a prescient philosopher and poet with a careful eye for nature, used to describe it, still in the early 1830s, as an essence unchanged by man (8), reflecting, in doing so, a common naive belief concerning the existence of wild nature just parallel to the crescent industrial development. Anyway, even if many people continued to believe that there would always be an innocent and untouched piece of natural land, the Western view was progressively harnessing the need to subdue nature, as a brutish and dangerous force to be civilised and controlled. Economy started to become the only parameter to judge best efficiency and humans’ well-being. It’s no coincidence, that from the 20th century till today, in a world mainly looking for profit, barely questioning the origins of the resources used to generate it, the main unit to measure the improvement of a nation has been the GDP (Gross Domestic Product).

Differently, in fact, from what Robert Kennedy declared in 1968 at the University of Kansas on the unsuitableness of GDP as a benefit indicator of the economically developed nations (9), a more and more stronger speculative capitalism has progressively led to its overestimation, in spite of other values that cannot be monetized. In this regard the Exxon Valdez oil spill, happened in 1991 on the costs of Alaska is particularly emblematic, as it paradoxically increased the country’s GDP. In fact, due to the large amount of people who went there trying to clean up the spill, restaurants, hotels, shops, gas stations, and stores all experienced an upward blip in economic exchange. The GDP in fact takes into account as only measure of progress the economic activity. It’s a sort of odometer: its precision can be crucial but still it’s not capable to inform you about the direction to take. (10) In fact, what sensible person would call the effects of an oil spill progress?

By the way, still most of the time GDP is the only leading criteria to take long-run political decisions, that consequently neglect the real needs of both environment and society, as they

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(7) W. McDonough and M. Braungart (2009), Cradle to Cradle. Re-making the way we make things, Vintage Books, London (8) R. W. Emerson (1836), Nature, in Selections from Ralph Waldo Emerson, edited by S. E. Whicher, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1957 (9) (The GDP) counts air pollution and cigarette advertising, and ambulances to clear our highways of carnage (...) It counts special locks for our doors and the jails for the people who break them. It counts the destruction of the redwood and the loss of our natural wonder in chaotic sprawl. It counts napalm and counts nuclear warheads and armored cars for the police to fight the riots in our cities.

It counts Whitman’s rifle and Speck’s knife, and the television programs which glorify violence in order to sell toys to our children. https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=t6U2irFSYHo&feature=emb_title (10) Amici della terra (1995), Verso un’Europa sostenibile, Maggioli Editore, Rimini

are outside an individual preference system. (11) Finally, in the words of Edward Abbey: Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell (12) and it’s hence the time for sustainability to radically influence and change our culture and society.

* Man is inside an existing natural eco-system, that he tries to understand.

* ******** ****** ** *** * ** ** ** * ** ** *** ** *** *******

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The concept of fast economic growth becomes stronger than the one of posterity.

The evolution of the relation between man and his environment.

(11) E. Tiezzi, N. Marchettini (1999), Che cos’è lo sviluppo sostenibile? Le basi scientifiche della sostenibilità e i guasti del pensiero unico, Donzelli, Roma (12) E. Abbey (1977), The journey home.

Some Words in the Defense of the American West, Penguin, 1991 (13) T. Malthus (1798), Population: The First Essay, University of Michigan press, Ann Arbor, 1959, p. 49

Man becomes part of this eco-system. He makes use of available natural resources in a respectful way.

(14) E. Zencey (2010), Theses on Sustainability, in Orion Magazine, https:// orionmagazine.org/article/theses-onsustainability/.

(15) Quoted in Max Oelshaeger (1992), The idea of Wilderness: From Prehistory to the Age of Ecology, Yale University Press, New Haven, p. 217 Next page: Exxon Waldez, Photo: RGB Ventures/SuperStock/Alamy Stock Photo, 1989

The Vitruvian Man and the emergence of the concept of human microcosm.

. A siècle of transition: from industry and society…

With the passing of time the awareness about the limit of available natural resources compared to our growing demography had progressively increased.

Thomas Malthus first, at the end of the 18th century, warned about the expected exponential growth of population and to its consequent devastating impacts on humankind: The power of population is so superior to the power in the earth to produce subsistence for man, that premature death must in some shape or other visit the human race (13). Anyway at that time, his voice remained quite isolated and unheeded, and he even became a cultural caricature due to his pessimistic position.

In fact, for decades environmentalism would have been primarily a simple moral admonition, with principles susceptible to being reduced to fundamentalist absolutes.

Environmentalists were just mourning the disappearance of natural wildness and time has long since passed for the achievement of sustainability to finger-wagging in its various forms (14), through the condemnation of environmental pollution, a more active type of denunciation or just through creative thinking.

Romantics as William Wordsworth (1770-1850) and William Blake (1757-1827) as well as The American Environmental Movement, (even if officially started around the 1970s with the first Earth Day, the movement grew its roots in the writings of 19th-century naturalists, as George Perkins Marsh and Henry David Thoreau) on the other side of the world, were speaking out against the increasing mechanistic urban society, without having a real active program though.

Leopold (1887-1948), who used to belong to this last group, especially anticipated some of the feelings of guilt that today characterise environmentalism when radically stated: When I submit these thoughts to a printing press, I am helping cut down the woods. When I pour cream in my coffee, I am helping to drain a marsh for cows to graze, and to exterminate the birds of Brazil. (…) when I father more than two children I am creating an insatiable need for more printing press, more cows, more coffee (…) (15).

Over the 1960s and ‘70s environmentalism started assuming

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a scientific base and a more proactive approach.

In historic terms, the moon landing of 1969 and the possibility to look at our planet as a whole contributed to the gradual adoption of a global perspective (16).

Moreover, some years later, the Arab oil embargo of 1973–1974 reinforced the idea of a globalised world as, for the first time, an event happening on one side of the globe had a direct domino impact on economies of several, dislocated but still inter-dependant, nations.

In that period, as a field of inquiry, environmental history, the human history through an ecological lens (17), emerged out of the environmental movement. In this regard, Rachel Carson with her book Silent Spring, published in 1962, became a key figure of active environmentalism, as she put the scientific bases to the romantic strain of wilderness appreciation, pointing out how science could damage hugely environment (specifically referring to pesticides such as DDT).

Her words displayed an increasing consciousness of the environmental issue: The control of Nature is a phrase conceived in arrogance, born of the Neanderthal age of biology and philosophy, when it was supposed that nature exists for the convenience of man. (18) Ten years later, in 1972, the Club of Rome with the publication of The Limits to Growth, demonstrated what Malthus was just theorising around two centuries before, displaying for the first time to the whole contemporary world the limited quantity of natural resources in respect to demographic growth. According to this report, if the rate of growth at that time, in terms of world population, industrialization, pollution, food production, and resource depletion, continued unchanged, resources would have been finished in around one hundred years. (19). With Beyond the limits, published around 20 years later, Club of Rome passed from a descriptive to a critical approach, concluding with some general warnings aimed to mark a direction to avoid an irresponsible resources’ consumption: Minimise the use of nonrenewable resources. (…) Prevent the erosion of renewable resources. (…) Use all resources with maximum efficiency. (…) Slow and eventually stop exponential growth of population and physical capital (20).

Paradigms that still today one could refer to when speaking of Circular Economy and sustainability.

1972 is also the year of the Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment, the first Global meeting between nations about the theme. It marked the recognition of the interdependency between environment and human development and hence the impossibility to split environmental and social policies.

In this regard, starting from 1979, the World Meteorological Organisation has settled several periodic international meetings about global climate issues in order to set the coordination between nations concerning environmental policies.

The publication of the Brundtland Report of 1987, also called Our Common Future, definitely marked the meaning of sustainable development, which is the one that meets the need of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs (21).

(16) T. Ingold (1993), The temporality of the landscape, published online: 15 Jul 2010, https://doi.org/10.1080/00438243.19 93.9980235 (17) J. D. Hughes,(1975), Ecology in Ancient Civilizations, Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press (18) R. Carson (1962), Primavera silenziosa, Feltrinelli, Milano, 2016

Again, after centuries, concepts as posterity and circularity of resources were coming back. It was still a vision, though, that didn’t find an immediate application to the industrial sector.

After decades of issuing urgent, in fact, industries were beginning to recognise causes for concern, but they were applying a strategy of reduction rather than a consistent modification of how to produce things.

(19) D. and D. Meadows, Sanders (1972), The Limits to growth: A report for the Club of Rome’s Project on the Predicament of Mankind, Universe Press

Sustainability has always been related to the 3R’s: Reduce, Recycle, Reuse. Reduce and Recycling though have been the primary drivers of the debate on the topic over the last century. Notwithstanding, due to the nature of some materials that could go wasted or be

(20) D. and D. Meadows, Sanders (1992), Beyond the Limits: Confronting Global Collapse, Envisioning a Sustainable Future, Chelsea Green Pub.

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contaminated and to the energy needed for their transformation or upgrade, (22), reductionism and recycling don’t halt depletion and destruction. They only slows them down, allowing them to take place in smaller increments over a longer period of time (7). At the contrary, a recent study (22) has finally demonstrated how a strategy of reuse can offset greenhouse gas emissions by 88% compared to reductionism.

Reuse and circularity, therefore, become crucial concepts in view of sustainability and ask for a complete rethinking of our society and industry.

Sustainability in fact implies a circular notion of time, while development has always been connected, in the Western culture at least, to a continuous accumulation of capital, material, services, knowledge and of anything that is commodified, implying, accordingly, a linear notion of time. (23).

Nevertheless, even if in recent years industries started to be aware of their limits of production (Robert Shapiro in 1997 declared: What we thought was boundless has limits and we’re beginning to hit them), the industrial infrastructure is mostly still linear, focused on making a product and getting it to a customer quickly and cheaply, according to the extract-produce-dispose model (25). In this regard, 90% of US production, due to the overused concept of planned obsolescence, is programmed exactly to become trash at its “end of life”, as it had a fixed and unchangeable expiring date (26).

. … to architecture

(21) Report of the World Commission on Environment and Development: Our Common Future. https:// sustainabledevelopment.un.org/content/ documents/5987our-common-future.pdf (22) R. Minunno, T. O’Gradya, G. M. Morrisona, R. L. Gruner, Exploring environmental benefits of reuse and recycle practices: A circular economy case study of a modular building, 16 May 2020, https://doi.org/10.1016/j. resconrec.2020.104855 (23) H. Bennetts, A. Radford, T. Williamson (2002), Understanding Sustainable Architecture, Taylor & Francis Group, Routledge, Abingdon (24) Quoted in (7) (25) C. De Wolf, E. Hoxha, C.Fivet, Comparison of environmental assessment methods when reusing building T components: A case study, 10 June 2020, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scs.2020.102322 (26) C. Monticelli (2013), Life cycle design in architettura. Progetto valutazione di impatto ambientale dalla materia all’edificio, Maggioli Editore

These ecologic and economic crisis related to industrialisation had an impact also on the directions taken by the architectural development and research. Its development could be synthesised in four main phases that are strictly related to historical events of last century and anticipate the current approach based on principles of Circular Economy.

Chronologically they are: Bioclimatic Architecture; Environmental Architecture; Sustainable Architecture; Resilient Architecture. This is not a fixed classifications, but rather a way to set a mental grid to order the events and have an effective synthesis of the evolution of the concept in the construction field over last century. In this regard, studying the built and planned environment in view of sustainability provides a way to reassess the very idea of an ‘artificial’ built environment. Artefacts of architecture and infrastructure are perhaps the most pervasive evidence of men’s artifice. Historically, buildings and architecture had a central meaning to represent the relation of a society with it surrounding environment. Consequently, their reinscription within a natural history allows us to reassess this divide and, with it, a central paradox of our present moment: that we have constructed a natural world in the process of fabricating an artificial one.

Bioclimatic Architecture, from the beginning of the 20st century till the ‘1950s, is generally

characterised by the interest for natural surroundings and local climate, ensuring the efficiency and conditions of thermal comfort for the building.

The ideas of Wright (1867-1959) on organic architecture, of Le Corbusier (1887-1965) and Breuer (1902-1981) on sun shading, of Atkinson (1883-1952) on hygiene are some examples of the first developments of this phase. In the ‘20s, the concept further evolved thanks to Meyer (1889-1954) and to his Biological Model (1926), a design approach that used to consider the building as a biological event (Meyer, 1926). A few years later, in 1929, Neutra (1882-1970), who had been a pupil of Wright and had already stated in the past the flaw of human products compared to nature, started to spread the concept of Bioregionalism: an infrastructure design that maximises the free-work that natural systems can provide (27).

Finally in the ‘50s empirical research entered definitely the architectural design. Those are the

25

years when Buckminster Fuller developed the Anticipatory Design Science (1950), with the aim to compute the exact quantity of material and energy needed for the construction and use of certain structures, introducing the concept of lightness in architecture. In the same period, the Olgyay Brothers set up the first architecture lab combining academic research and practice.

Some years later, their book Design with Climate (1963) will become a stepping stone for an alternative modernism questioning the universality of a fossil fuel-dependent architecture.

(28) The passage toward the second paradigm of Environmental Architecture, corresponding to the period between the ‘60s and the ‘90s, is characterised by a tendency of environment inclusiveness in architecture, from the building interior to the planning scale.

In this period, environmentalism was starting to enter public consciousness and hence the criticism, or at least the questioning, of modernist architectural practices, that will definitely collapse with the demolition of Pruitt-Igoe in 1972.

McHarg (1920-2001) with his contribution on a regional planning approach that uses natural systems, is one of the main actors of this phase. His book Design with Nature (1963) had great popularity and not only changed design and planning, but also gain the attention of fields as diverse as geography and engineering, forestry and environmental ethics, soils science and ecology.

At the architectural scale, the Egyptian architect Hassan Fathy, also known as the Middle East’s father of sustainable architecture (29), leaded to the rediscovery and incorporation of traditional design and building materials, that can be easily be recycled or directly reused. He wrote: here, for years, for centuries, the peasant had been wisely and quietly exploiting the obvious building material, while we, with our modern school-learned ideas, never dreamed of using such a ludicrous substance as mud for so serious a creation as a house (30).

The ‘70s also marked the outcome of several organisation promoting a more sustainable way of constructing, consistently to the general pro-active approach that environmentalism started to adopt in these same years. In this regard, in America, the American Institute of Architecture (AIA) was promoting American public works to be a reflection of the sensitivity toward environmental quality (Commission on Highway Beautification, 1972). The American Solar Energy Society (ASES), instead, was, and still is today, a non-profit organization, funded in 1954 with the aim to share knowledge, advocating for sustainable living and 100% renewable energy (31).

In Europe, the Passive and Low Energy Architecture (PLEA) society had a role in leading the debate and collecting new ideas about sustainable architecture, especially thanks to the conference they organised in Crete, Greece, of 1983. In this occasion, first ideas of energy neutral buildings and renewable energy integrated systems were introduced in several building prototypes and concepts.

The Brundtland report of 1987 marked the transition toward the period named Sustainable Architecture, lasting for around 10 years. The concept of posterity entered building construction and hence the concept of biological and technical loops.

In America, Samuel Mockbee (1944-2001) demystified Modern Architecture, combining its forms and angles to a context-belonging approach, that look for the reduction of transformation processes and transports’ shortenings rather than universality. (32) This period is also characterised by the research for new empirical simulation and measuring methods to quantify buildings’ performance in terms of sustainability. The idea was to establish a holistic rating that goes beyond aggregating individual components of the project (33).

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(27) C. J. Kibert, J. Sendzimir and G. B. Guy (2001), Construction ecology: nature as the basis for green buildings, Spon Press, London (28) V. Baweja (2014), Sustainability and the architectural history survey, Enquiry.

An open access journal for architectural research, vol. 11, issue 1 (29) T. Laylin (2010), Hassan Fathy is The Middle East’s Father of Sustainable Architecture in Cities, February 26 (30) H. Fathy (1973), Architecture for the Poor: An Experiment in Rural Egypt, University of Chicago Press, Chicago and London (31) https://ases.org

The US Green Building Council of 1993, founded to promote sustainability in the way buildings are designed, built, and operated will finally define the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) rating system. It was the first method to compute the level of sustainability of a building based on factors like surroundings, emissions, toxicity, performance efficiency, water and energy use.

Meanwhile in Europe the concept of Passive House was progressively emerging, based on the considerations of excellent insulation, prevention of thermal bridges, airtightness, insulated glazing and controlled ventilation, already required in Denmark and Sweden for low energy buildings. Its inventors were Bo Adamson (1925-) and Wolfgang Feist, who defined Passive House as buildings which have an extremely small heating energy demand even in the colder climates and therefore need no active heating. This kind of houses could be kept warm passively, solely by using the existing internal heat sources and solar energy entering through the windows as well as by the minimal heating of incoming fresh air. The theoretical proof for the feasibility of such houses was finally provided in the thesis Passive Houses in Central Europe

by Feist in 1993.

Just a few years later, the first international agreement to stop global warming, the Kyoto Protocol, of 1997, marked furthermore the need for Resilient Architecture. In this regard, the work of Bill Dunster (1960-) and of his studio Zedfactory on Zero Energy Development and Ed Mazria (1940-) on the 2030 Challenge had a strong impact on architectural research and practice.

Notwithstanding, till the end of last century, consistently to what was also happening into the industrial sector, all these paradigms have been based on an existing strategy of reductionism rather than proposing innovative approaches and technologies aimed at the complete elimination of wastes.

Moreover, until the start of the 21st century, promoting sustainable architecture and green building concepts was actually a specialist niche issue, a storm in a glass of water in the margin of a linear economic mass production. (34) Nevertheless, sustainable architecture can play a key role for the sustainable development of society as a whole, as cities can potentially be a testing ground for models of the ecological and economic renewal of the society. (34) In this regard, cities shall be conceived as histories of ecosystems, due to their set of ecological relationships. (17) Now especially the built environment plays a vital role in the global economy and can be an engine for sustainable innovation and growth. Accelerating the ongoing transition from a linear to Circular Economy in the construction sector can vastly increase this potential.

. What is Circular Economy and the concept of Regenerative Architecture

(32) samuelmockbee.net (33) G. Gylling in K. G. Jensen and H. Birgisdottir (2018) (edited by), Guide to Sustainable Building Certifications, Realdania and The Dreyer Foundation (34) S. Attia (2018), Regenerative and Positive Impact Architecture. Learning from Case Studies, Springer, Cham

Therefore, in industry as well as in construction and society in general the question is still the same: You wouldn’t want to depend on savings for all of your daily expenditures, so why rely on savings to meet all of humanity’s energy needs? (7) Today, a number of globally branded companies are seeking to develop and transform their business models in view of Circular Economy, in order to be able to exploit the opportunities of this type of approach and hence to increase significantly resource productivity (35).

The business model of Circular Economy is one of the most recent proposals to address environmental sustainability. It stands in contrast to the traditional linear economic model, by addressing at the same time economic growth and shortage of raw materials and energy.

It is a production and consumption process based on the preservation of components

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1926 Biological Model, Hannes Meyer

1929 Lovell House, R. Neutra

1950 Anticipatory Design Science, R. Buckminster Fuller

Bioclimatic architecture

1963 Design with climate, Olgyay Brothers

Environment

19 Mo landi

1962 Silent Sprin R. Carson

1910

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1920

1930

1940

1950

1960

1994 How buildings learn, S.Brand

1972 Commission on Higway Beautification AIA

1983 Conference in Crete

by PLEA

ntal architecture

Regenerative design for sustainable development J. Lyle

Sustainable architecture

2002 From Cradle to Cradle, M. Brangaurt, W. McDonough

Resilient architecture

1987

1997

Brundtland Report

Kyoto Protocol

2019

European Green Deal

1969 1972 1973 Moon Pruitt- Igoe Oil embargo anding demolition 1972 Limits of growth, Club of Rome

Spring, son

1970

1980

1990

2000

2010

2020

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and materials within closed loops of production of either biological or technical nutrients and it has the aim to achieve resource efficiency by keeping their added value throughout all stages of the value chain. The size of each loop especially depends on the quantity of

transformations a certain product will need before being valuable and reusable again: the smaller the loop is, less transformations the component will need. Product value, instead, depends on the overall value chain structure identifying processes of material reuse, as transportation distances, site conditions and quantities of materials. Thus it’s clear that the more processes and material inputs are required by a reuse product, the less likely it is to become pricecompetitive through potential cost savings from lower-priced secondary materials (36).

Circular Economy now forces its way into architecture and urbanism as well.

And with good reason: 40% of the demand for energy in the European Union is consumed by the building industry (37) and, according to estimates, a staggering 60% of all waste is the result of construction and demolition.

The great significance of buildings and dwellings is evident in the way the building sector occupies in national economies. Private households spend roughly one third of their disposable income on housing (38), while in Western Europe, 75% of fixed assets are invested in real estate (39).

Data are again disconcerting: urban sprawl has already caused severe environmental damages as we’re developing land, the scarcest resource on earth according to the European Union Directive, at a speed that the earth cannot compensate. Resources (land, water, energy, materials and air) we need to provide for decent housing and high quality life in the built environment are in decline because they are being used, exhausted or damaged faster than nature can regenerate them. (34) According to Global Footprint Network, the accelerated impact of climate change and the increasing negative impact of the built environment are exceeding the planets capacity by almost two times.

In addition, United Nations recently stated that cities are responsible for the 70% in the global energy demand and that their relevance is expected to increase, in step with the urban population (40). Our demand is growing: by 2050 people on Earth shall around 10 billion and 80% of them is expected to be urbanised. This fact urgently ask to re-think our city and to find new solutions to provide affordable and sustainable housing.

In this regard, today half of the population of many cities live in illegal settlements without access to basic services (41). Forecasts state that within little more than a decade, a third of urban dwellers, 1.6 billion people, could struggle to secure decent housing (42).

Currently, moreover, the affordable housing gap, that is the difference between the cost of an acceptable standard housing unit, which varies by location, and what households can afford to pay using no more than 30% of income, stands at $650 billion a year and the problem will only grow as urban populations expand. In terms of numbers, this means that by 2025 1 billion houses are needed worldwide. (43).

Thus, the demand side asks for new policies able to combine economic and social aspect (the ageing of population, the increasing of number of families, the increasing of social and economic vulnerable categories, the in- creasing number of migrants), facilitating housing access (44).

However, meeting this demand through current linear construction and housing practices requires an investment of around $9–11 trillion overall and have significant negative environmental impacts, such as the impacts from extraction that are felt locally as well as globally.

Therefore, integrating circular economy principles into all the phases of a building’s cycle could work to meet urban needs for built space, while staying within planetary boundaries.

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(35) GXN Innovation (2019), Building a Circular Future. 3rd Edition, originally published in 2016 with support from the Danish Environmental Protection Agency (36) Nußholz, Rasmussen, Whalen, & Plepys (2020), Material reuse in buildings: Implications of a circular business model for sustainable value creation, https://doi. org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2019.118546 (37) P. Huovila (2007), Buildings and Climate Change: Status, Challenges, and Opportunities, United Nations Environment Programme (38) Eurostat (2012) Housing cost overburden rate by tenure status. Eurostat (39) Serrano C, Martin H (2009), Global securitized realestate benchmarks and performance, J Real Estate Portfolio Manage (40) K. Milhahn (2019), Cities: a ‘cause of and solution to’ climate change, in UN News, 18 September (41) D. Satterthwaite, D. Archer, S. Colenbrander, D. Dodman,J. Hardoy,D. Mitlin, S. Patel (2020), Building Resilience to Climate Change in Informal Settlements, https://doi. org/10.1016/j.oneear.2020.02.002 (42) J. Woetzel, S. Ram, J. Mischke, N. Garemo and S. Sankhe (2014), Tackling the world’s affordable housing challenge, McKinsey Global Institute, 1st October (43) McKinsey Center for Business and Environment, J. Woetzel, S. Ram, J. Mischke, N. Garemo, S. Sankhe (edited by) (2014), A blueprint for addressing the global affordable housing challenge, October (44) V. Gianfrate, C. Piccardo, D. Longo, A. Giachetta (2017), Rethinking social housing: Behavioural patterns and technological innovations, http://dx.doi. org/10.1016/j.scs.2017.05.015

Cradle to grave

Reductionism

In this regard, Social Housing can have a role in the development of social enterprises and as an opportunity to face this new incremental housing demand and hence new living models, enlarging the entrance to the housing market and with the identification of new financial and funding models, fostering new partnerships’ between public and private sectors, as further explained in the

fourth chapter.

Covid-19 puts an additional strain to the research for building a liveable, affordable and sustainable alternative, as when households and communities have most of the essential features, it’s easier to address COVID-19 at scale.

According to Satterthwaite, still today many minimise health, social and economic costs and make self-isolation and achieving high-quality hygiene much easier (41).

Future challenges ask thus more research on crucial topics as Circular Economy in the construction sector and quality affordable housing for everyone.

These are the starting points of my research.

Cradle to cradle

Different strategies of production.

Next page, right: Milano - Quarto Oggiaro.

Porzione della facciata di un edificio di edilizia popolare.

Photo: G. Basilico, 1970-1973.

Next page, left: Residential house in Hong Kong.

Photo:A. Shimmeck, 2019.

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32

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Designing the alternative: innovative construction method “In order to achieve positive building footprint we must move from the cradle to grave paradigm that aims to reduce, avoid, minimize or prevent the use of fossil energy to a regenerative paradigm that aims to increase, support, and optimize the use of renewable” - J.T. Lyle, 1996 -

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We’re facing today the urgent need to completely rethink our way of designing and of creating new urban policies, in order to provide an integrated construction system capable of addressing Circular Economy at the small as well as at the big scale, for the individual as for the society, in the events of everyday life as well as in long term measures. Strategies of mitigation of the impacts of human activity are not enough anymore. At the same time, Circular Economy can potentially give a greater meaning to the value of civilisation, assuming the environment we inhabit as part of our imaginary and not as something different.

In this mindset, rethinking the construction sector in the way we produce and manage buildings over time becomes central, in order to finally come back to a global ethic of posterity, that makes a positive use of the same technology that led us to an antagonistic relation with nature. . The origins of Regenerative Architecture After 40 years of Reductionism, the construction sector has began to investigate the concept of Regeneration in architecture. This paradigm stems from three books in particular, published in the same years: Regenerative design for sustainable development by John Lyle (1994), How buildings learn by Steward Brand (1994) and the above mentioned From cradle to cradle by Michael Braungart and William McDonough’s (2002).

Regenerative Architecture is a design transposition of Circular Economy’s principles. The attribute regenerative refers to a process that repairs, recreates or revitalizes its own sources of energy or air, water or any other matter, in order to create a virtuous circle, with a balance between the consumption of resources and creation of products and resources identical in quantity and quality to the initial ones. As a response to the imbalance between anthropogenic activities and Earth’s regenerative and carrying capacity, Sustainable architecture calls both for a sustainable use of building materials and a change in material cycles from the cradle to grave to the cradle to cradle model (1) and finally for the design projects to be active and self-regulating.

(1) W. McDonough and M. Braungart (2009), Cradle to Cradle. Re-making the way we make things, Vintage Books, London (2) GXN Innovation (2019), Building a Circular Future. 3rd Edition, originally published in 2016 with support from the Danish Environmental Protection Agency (3) F. L. Flager (2003), The Design of Building Structures for Improved Life-Cycle Performance, Submitted to the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Engineering in Civil and Environmental Engineering, May 9 (4) S. Brand (1994), How buildings learn.

What happens after they’re built, Penguin Books

Architecture is therefore perceived as a biological organism, that adapts its functionalities according to eventual environmental changes, in order to survive to the ecosystem, or rather implement it. Eventual environmental impacts both related to the Operative Life and to the End of Life of the building hence become central and influence the design project since its very beginning.

In this regard, Regenerative architecture declines into two main operational fields: Design for Disassembly (also called Life Cycle Thinking) and Design for Adaptability.

The two approaches have the aim to take aware decision during the design phase of the building in order to prevent its premature demolishment and hence save wastes in terms of energy and resources, keeping products and material circulating at their highest value (2).

According to Design for Disassemble, the built project, as well as the single component, are conceived as a phase of the whole construction project (3)

For this reason, Design for Disassembly requires an in-depth conceptual and theoretical exploration of the make-up of building systems and components, as not all of them can be easily dismantled and reused.

This concept recalls the theory of building layers by the above mentioned S. Brand (4), who defines building elements according to their life expectancy:

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1. The site: the eternal geographical setting; 2. The structure: with a structural life ranges from 30 to 300 years (…).

3. The skin: exterior surfaces covering the building, as a threshold between the indoor and the

outdoor environment with an expectancy of around 20 years.

4. The services: communication wiring, electrical wiring, plumbing, HVAC and distribution, (escalators and elevators). They wear out or obsolesce every 7 to 15 years. (2) 5. The space plan: the interior layout, that can change every 3 years or so.

6. The stuff: furniture, things as phones, pictures, lamps… Furniture is called mobilia in Italian for good reasons. (2) This kind of distinction is fundamental in view of deconstruction and further reuse.

It is important to maintain these systems as independent as possible so that components on higher layers could be altered or replaced without affecting lower layers.

For this reason, types of connections used become crucial. In order to permit fast and easy disassembling method, they shall be both visible and accessible.

When we speak of Design for Adaptability, instead, we consider Regenerative Architecture in terms of program and function. It indicates the capability of the building to adapt to specific needs and diverse demands over time.

The building shall be adjustable, (able to change its task), versatile, in terms of spatial flexibility, refitable and thus able to vary its performances, scalable, repeatible and convertible. (5)

. The main principles of Design for Disassembly during each phase of construction Choices taken in view of Design for Disassembly could be defined by a few principles and criteria leading all the steps of Building Life Cycle, from the choice of its material and components, to its assembling operation, to its service life and final disassembling.

The phase of materials’ and components’ choice This phase regards decisions concerning materials typology and production, as well as the design of the operative phase of the building.

Architects shall focus on the energy embedded in each material.

Net zero buildings and zero-carbon buildings obtained this rating as they produce as much energy as they consume it daily. Yet, as they’re still following a Reduction paradigm, this computation doesn’t consider the energy needed to build them, that is a lot. In view of Regenerative Architecture and Design for Disassembly, the energy and carbon required for the production of a building product must be calculated in order to be finally covered by materials’ value at the end of their operative life.

All manufacturers shall carry out effective plans for transitioning to renewable energy use to finally be able to use renewable energies in their manufacturing processes with a target of 100% of its use at the end of the production line. Therefore, companies who are currently producing their products using scarce or environmentally destructive resources should find alternative fully renewable, recyclable or biodegradable materials as basis for their production.

Additionally, these resources should be able to be used in consecutive lifecycles.

Materials’ and techniques choices also depend on context.

In view of Design for Disassembly, context shall be perceived as an active building component.

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(5) P.R. Beurskens, M.J.M. Bakx (2015), Built-to-rebuild.The development of a framework for buildings according to the circular economy concept, which will be specified for the design of circular facades, Graduation thesis elaborated for the degree of Master of Science in Architecture, Building and Planning at Eindhoven University of Technology, 24 September

Stuff Space plan Services Skin Structure Site

SYSTEM LEVEL

Natural land, water, air, energy resources are active factors influencing the design process and its related decisions.

Moreover, locally appropriate materials can be more affordable. In China, for instance, the cost of a bamboo façade could be 60% lower than that of a concrete one (6).

In this regard, the incorporation of locally available materials could also have the side effect to actively support a local economy that sources, uses, and reuses materials locally.

Context defines also the shape of the project, in view of blocks’ orientation, based on its position in respect to Sun, their link to existing urbanity, defined by fluxes of people and existing connections, the adoption of certain techniques based on local knowledge. Soil in fact is not just a mere morphologic support (7).

The phase of decision making SUB-SYSTEM LEVEL

COMPONENT LEVEL

Reinterpretation of the diagram of Building Layers by Steward Brand.

(6) Ellen MacArthur Foundation (2018), The circular economy opportunity for urban and industrial innovation in China (7) M. Angrilli in R. Pavia (edited by) (2012), Eco-Logics. Design and Ecology, LIst Lab, Trento (8) Ellen MacArthur Foundation (2016), CIrcularity in the built environment: case studies. A compilation of case studies from the CE100 (9) A.Dickson (2020), Le case del futuro, in Prospect (UK), translated in Internazionale n°1351, 27 marzo (10) E. Andreta (2011), Le tre rivoluzioni (macro - micro - nano) che stanno cambiando il mondo, in TECHNE Journal of Technology for Architecture and Environment, n.1, pp. 18-25

ELEMENT LEVEL

MATERIAL LEVEL

Architects shall design the entire Operative Life of the building and shall be able to envision all possible Stuff modifications it could face over its service life.

Space plan Services Fluxes of energy, materials, people shall be computed since Skin the beginning in order to understand what will be the Structure Site of the building over its service life. Materials or consumption components reparations shall be perceived as opportunities to improve the building, as the gold of the Japanese broken porcelain in the Kintsugi art.

Therefore, the design process should focus on Life Cycle Cost rather than its construction costs: this will always result in a more sustainable and robust building of higher quality (2).

In fact, today, more than 80% of the total energy consumption in a building’s life is consumed during its use (8).

This principle of reparation could be also applied to the urban scale, in terms of retrofitting and recycle solutions, releasing from the recurrent obsession for durability and permanence (9), deviating in this way from the Vitruvian imperative of firmitas.

Flexibility and adaptivity become thus central features to meet the new needs of the century and to avoid the risk of obsolescence, in view of an inter-relation men-environment characterised by continuous transformations. (10).

Functional changes of the building need to be potentially anticipated during its design phase, in order to avoid eventual episodes of inefficiency.

In this regard, the key point of creating places is to remember that while a street may have a life of 1000 years or more, and a building perhaps 200 years, utility and building services may

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have a life of 25 years (11).

Regenerative design is fundamentally based on anticipating the multifunctional evolutions of the buildings use in the future.

In a rapidly changing society, our buildings need to be able to adapt quickly to changes and new sociocultural and demographic issues. It is therefore essential to integrate strategies allowing the building to adapt to a variety of uses over time, for example through the adoption of open structural systems, made of a few fixed elements, on which other flexible ones can be customised. This is the key to anticipate future modifications of buildings by addition, subtraction or replacement.

The phase of assembling Buildings shall be designed in view of easy assembling and disassembling. If the product is easier to assemble, it is also simpler and cheaper to produce and thus to maintain and upcycle.

In this regard, as a precondition for concepts as reparation and substitution and reuse, Design for Disassembly asks for the use of accessible dry joints.

Today buildings are normally statically welded, glued and cast together. The ones designed to be disassembled are a smaller niche mostly built in timber with steel joints.

Thus the most significant challenge that the sector faces is how to make disassemble also large and complex concrete structures, which represent a lot of value and leave a huge environmental footprint. (12)

In this way future buildings could become resource troves and hence material banks for next constructions.

Peikko, a company that supplies a large selection of concrete connections and composite beams based in Finland, is working in this direction. It has recently developed dry joints solutions as the Sumo Wall Shoe or the Anchor bolts.

Moreover, Design for Disassembly could recall the concept of Lego: modular elements that can be combined forming almost infinite combinations and come back to their original value when disassembled later on. In this regard, when you use modular elements in the architecture project, you can speak of Modular Design.

In this case, an object or system is made up of smaller independent components, or modules, that may be separated, recombined, and used interchangeably across different units of the object or system it belongs to (13).

Modular design is generally combined to Design for Disassembly as a mean by which to make refurbishment, repair, and upgrade is far easier, as it depends on the combination of individual standardised parts that can be replaced, repaired, and upgraded independently of the other modules, if designed properly. This design approach may therefore extend product lifetimes and reduce the number of products and materials that are disposed off prematurely. According to Ellen MacArthur Foundation, (14) modular design typically reuses 80% of the components in a building’s exterior, providing durability.

In terms of efficiency, the miesean concept of less is more is still valuable: less components means more flexibility in terms of maintenance and use of the space over time and also energy savings in terms of components’ production.

Moreover, their characteristic off-site industrial construction could greatly reduces waste generation, while all off-cuts could be fully recycled in the factory (15).

Notwithstanding, modularity, especially in architecture, is generally associated to the risk of standardisation, given by the limited amount of forms and size of components.

Nevertheless, modularity is part of our everyday life. Cars are modular, for instance: individual

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(11) A.Ritchie, R. Thomas (edited by) (2009), Sustainable Urban Design: An Environmental Approach, Taylor and Francis Group, London and New York (12) GXN Innovation (2019), Building a Circular Future. 3rd Edition, originally published in 2016 with support from the Danish Environmental Protection Agency (13) H. Meilani (2019), The Circular Potential of Modular Design, in Material Trader.com, 8 of November, https:// community.materialtrader.com/the-circularpotential-of-modular-design/ (14) Ellen MacArthur Foundation (2015), SUN and McKinsey Center for Business and Environment, Growth Within: a circular economy vision for a competitive Europe (15) R. Lawson, R. Ogden (2010), Sustainability and process benefits of modular construction, Proceedings: TG57 – Special Track. 18th CIB World Building Congress

modules – the doors, windows, seats, tires, engine – are pieced together to form the car as a whole and are designed to be compatible with any car of its model. When you have a flat tire, or when the window shield gets a crack, would be insane to buy a new car. That would be far too costly in both economic and environmental terms. Instead, you’d replace that module of your car with a new one. (13).

This is also the concept of modularity when associated to Design for Disassembling, as a system made of a permanent structure and of a sub-system, dynamic and flexible, on this depending. If your office has gotten too small to house your expanding team, you should be able to create enough space by adding on a few more modules to the building.

Today the emergence of prefabrication is also due to the introduction of Building Information Modeling (BIM) technology in the process of Design for Disassembly, as, as later explained, it influences the design, processes and planning of resources in the prefabrication construction industry.

The phase of management of the operative life of the building The consistent use of modular components in the construction sector may mean for industries the need to rethink to current business models, with the aim to reduce demand for new materials by designing products for greater longevity, or even perpetual reuse, still obtaining an economic gain.

(16) Philips Industry (2017), Minimise your environmental footprint and create instant savings. Philips Circular Lighting, https://images.philips.com/is/content/ PhilipsConsumer/PDFDownloads/ United%20Kingdom/ODLI20171031_001PDF-en_GB-7036_Circular_Lighting_Digi_ WTO_01.pdf (17) C. De Kwant, How to Design Products for the Circular Economy?, in Modular Management, https://www. modularmanagement.com/circulareconomy (18) ARUP (2016), The Circular Economy in the Built Environment, London Next page: detail of prototype of Anchor Bolt technology by N. B. Nolsoe and N. W. Sevel.

Photo: L. K. Frederiksen, 2015

As we’ll explain later, accessibility, rather than ownership, could eventually become the key for the creation of sustainable business models. Leasing concept is expanding, as it’s not always economically viable to own a product or a building. Philips, for instance, has recently presented a new kind of service, called pay per lux, that provides lighting to Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport on a lease basis, that means that it is responsible for the performance of the lighting for the duration of the contract. Specially designed light fixtures are easier to service and maintain making them last 75% longer than conventional alternatives. Philips takes care of the eventual extraction and reparation of individual component parts, minimising the need to replace whole fixtures and reducing the consumption of raw materials. The system uses energy-efficient light-emitting diodes (LEDs), and is expected to cut the airport’s energy consumption by as much as 50% (16).

In this concern, modular design enables companies to separate and replace modules that are used intensively and to gain feedbacks for eventual performance upgrades of modular components. This improves maintenance services along the product lifecycle, and enables processes for module return, recovery and reuse (17).

Moreover, swapping functions and sharing dynamics could extend the use of both spaces and products not fully used.

A school building for example is empty in the evening and could be therefore used for other purposes. In this way, this model ensure the concept of re-use and exploit economic opportunities, shaping a relation between owners without a use for their product and people or companies with specific needs. In this regard, researches show that young people are more inclined to rent, lease or share items such as clothes, cars or houses: a good starting point for future potential dynamics (18).

The phase of end of life The efficiency of this last phase depends on the quality of the decisions made in the previous phases.

Materials and components shall be able to enter different loops, according to the level of

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transformation they need before being reused. Each building product or material shall be able to biodegrade safely as an organic nutrient or be recycled into a new product as a technical nutrient.

For this reason, all manufacturers shall be required to develop and implement strategies to close the life-cycle of their products with a goal of 100% recovery or re-use. The guarantee that a material can be recycled is not enough in fact to judge it as a good material, especially if it wasn’t designed at the beginning to be recycled at the end of its life. Circular economy, in fact, should always consider value creation in view of upcycling, that means make them more valuable than originally. In order to explain this circularity of resources, McDonough and Braungart (2009) use the metaphor of the Cherry Tree, that looses all its flowers in a short period so that they can become nutrients for the tree and its new blossoms (19).

.

(19) A cherry tree in full bloom is stunning in its abundant beauty of hundreds of thousands of blossoms. (…) Yet how many of those blossoms eventually yield new trees? Maybe just one or two, which is a miniscule percentage! The cherry tree is in a sense incredibly inefficient and horribly wasteful with its ridiculous bounty. Yet,(…), there is no waste in the system as a whole.

The blossoms fall and are immediately an input to new biological systems – ants, microbes, worms and others feast on this free input – and eventually they produce their own “waste” which, in turn, is an input that feeds the cherry tree for its next season of ludicrously abundant blossoms.

Bountiful and wasteful alone, the cherry tree’s ecosystem has no waste.

In W. McDonough and M. Braungart (2009), Cradle to Cradle. Re-making the way we make things, Vintage Books, London

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Construction phases’ programming

Design of the disassembling process

Use of non-toxic materials

Definition of maintenance instructions

Construction

Construction materials Energy Water Sun Wind Rain

Use of recycled / recyclable materials Balanced resources

+

+

+ + Resistant materials

REGENERATIVE ARCHITECTURE

Pre-construction

Operative life

Local materials

Used materials Combustion products Grey water Heat waste Polluted air Aquifer

Deconstruction

Building’s adaptation to new users’ needs

Building’s materials and components reuse

Building’s materials and components recycling

Plot and infrastructures reuse

The circular process of regenerative architecture.

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Principles of Design for Disassembling

Fina nc i

Fina nc i ion duct Pro

Fin an c

Energy

ion duct Pro

ion duct Pro

Mat eri als

Mat eri als

Compen

tion era Op

tion era Op

44

Mat eri als

Materials’ and components’ choice

Ma n

Maintenance Performa nce

Compensation of the energy required by materials’ production.

ng

e tur ac uf

Computation of energy needed for material production, building construction and operative life of the building.

Design

Ma n

Performa nce

Performa nce

Tracing materials production

ng

e tur ac uf

e tur ac uf

tion sa

g in

Design

Ma n

tion era Op

Design

Sale

The context as active building component

Design the operative phase of the building

Natural land, water, air, energy resources are active factors influencing the design process and its related decisions.

Materials or components reparations, planned since the beginning, shall be perceived as opportunities to improve the performance of the building.

The project and its context become part of the same metabolism.

This principle could be also applied to an urban scale when speaking of programs of districts’ refurbishment.

Decisions’ making and assembling phase

Fina nc i

Bio d

Fina nc i

Fina nc i ion duct Pro

y ilit

on ducti Pro

Mat eri als

Regenerative design is thus fundamentally based on anticipating the multifunctional evolutions of the buildings uses in the future.

Mate ria ls

tion era Op

Flexibility and adaptivity of the blocks become central features to meet the new needs of the century and to avoid the risk of obsolescence

radation eg

Performa nce

tion era Op

Mate ria ls

Operative life of the building

Monitoring time rather than challenging it

Ma n e tur ac uf

The principle can be shaped into two different ways: by the diversification of use of a space in different moment of the day or by more people sharing the same space at the same time.

Fle xib

Performa nce

Extention of the use of both spaces and products not fully used by sharing them, promoting the emergence of a sharing economy.

Performa nce

e tur ac uf

Sharing platforms and services

ng

e tur ac uf

ng

Design

Ma n

ources res s a

Design

ng

Ma n

tion era Op

Design

Recovery and recycling Materials enter a process of circular economy, so that at the end of their operative life they become new resources for new beginnings.

This means that each building product or material must be able to biodegrade safely as an organic nutrient or be recycled into a new product as a technical nutrient.

End of life of the building

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Planning the alternative: innovative business models “Design for disassembly requires a different way of thinking yet carries many positive side effects that are activated by the extra thought put into the product. Many of them will effect the use on a daily basis from the beginning, some will be harvested in the future and some will affect the planet as a whole.”

- K. Guldager Jensen, Architect, Senior Partner 3XN and Director GXN-

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Design for Disassembling can be effective just when all its phases of collection, assessment, management, reassembly or recycling of buildings’ materials and components are planned globally through Circular Economy. As above mentioned, the built project is just a phase of a wider circular system that keeps together all the actors involved in its construction, from the production of its materials and components to its complete disassembling and further regeneration, in terms either of reuse or recycling.

Therefore, the shift towards a Circular Economy and Design for Disassembly is a complex process that cannot be realised by product and process innovation alone but rather via profoundly altering the logic of value creation of current production and consumption systems (1) and through the creation of new ad-hoc organisations.

Therefore, Circular Economy needs to invest also urbanity and society, in order to create those preconditions for its efficiency in the construction sector. Hence, the introduction of the new organism of Material Bank and of the Business Models of both Leasing Economy and Sharing Economy, as preconditions to finally present planning principles to shape new circular cities and neighbourhoods of the future. . The concept of Material Bank and Material Passport Deconstruction can permit an appropriate recovery of components and materials for either reuse or recycling in the most cost-effective manner and with a substantial reduction of embodied greenhouse gas emissions. For this reason, as above described, the potential reusability of materials and components shall be planned globally, in order for all the phases of collection, assessment, management, reassembly or recycling of materials and components to realize cost-effectiveness, material-effectiveness, and high reusability degree during the construction phase.

In this regard, in terms of Design for Disassembly, when it is possible to disassemble something without damaging the materials from which it is made and access them years later without any loss of quality or value, you can start to see everything as a material bank, where you save up for the future. In this vision, buildings are our future material banks, providing substantial economic advantages for stakeholders of the future.

(1) N. Roome, C. Louche, (2016), Journeying toward business models for sustainability: a conceptual model found inside the black box of organisational transformation, Organ. Environ. 29, 11-35 (2) G. Cai, D. Waldmann (2019), A material and component bank to facilitate material recycling and component reuse for a sustainable construction: concept and preliminary study, Springer Nature, https:// doi.org/10.1007/s10098-019-01758-1

The material and component bank is a manager who is responsible of the transfer of materials and components from deconstructed structures to new structures. According to Cai and Waldmann (2), the presence of an independent agent working as a material bank in the process of Design for Disassembly could help to handle dismantling and post-dismantling processes through: 1. the global planning of deconstruction and selective dismantling, to extract and collect recyclable and reusable materials and components; 2. The extraction and selection of reusable and recyclable materials; 3. The assessment and improvement of the quality of materials and components, so that

they can be reused, providing better performances.

4. The certification of materials and components;

5. The storing and selling of materials and components, in a factory or center shop of the

bank.

The core aim of the Material Bank is therefore the creation of a cadaster of secondary

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resources, of a database of materials and components to promote their direct reuse in the next cycle of construction activities.

Notwithstanding, the availability of certified informations concerning both components and materials about their dimensions, conditions and performances, is a pre-condition for future maintenance and next reuse and recycling.

For this reason, the concept of Material Passport becomes relevant, as an important supporttool of circularity, that ensures the ability to gain access to all the relevant informations describing a building component or material.

Material passport acts as a design optimisation tool, as well as an inventory of all materials embedded in a building and displays the recycling potential and environmental impact of buildings. (3)

As the Material Passport concept is quite new, there are only a few studies on that topic so far.

Nevertheless, today, in view of Design for Disassembly, it becomes crucial.

As reported by Ellen MacArthur Foundation (4), today due to lack of information on building contents, only 20–30% of construction and demolition waste is recycled or reused.

Moreover, since each building material and component belongs to a specific context and is defined by its own features and technologies, it is of utmost importance to obtain detailed knowledge about them, in order to program eventual future scenarios.

In this regard, technology such as Building Information Modelling (BIM), as a method to address design decisions concerning the overall Operative Life of the building and its final dismantling, can help turn buildings into banks of materials and in transmitting components’ informations.

If used from the design phase, BIM platforms can bring together the entire supply chain, and enable the end-customer to know what is in the building, and what the building and its components have been used for (4). Hence, BIM could contribute on waste minimisation

(5), even if, for other older structures, BIM model may not be available (2). Their maintenance and repairing in fact usually start when safety and durability issues are already there.

Several studies tried to combine BIM technology to Radio Frequency Identification (RFID).

RFID is a system that uses radio waves to read and capture data and, in the framework of Design for Disassembly, its adoption could be useful in terms of resource management, logistics, tracking processes and safety, as it would carry and store materials’ and components’ ID. Even if more expensive, Radio Frequency Identification system has several advantages over barcodes, QR codes or other ID technologies (6) and it has been used already in different other sectors of industry in the past .

Today, from Circular Economy and Design for Disassembly perspective, its integration to BIM technology could lead to creating a cyber-physical system, forming a bridge between the physical and the virtual tool of Design for Disassembly. Furthermore, both BIM and Radio Frequency Identification’s benefits can be better leveraged in combination than in isolation (7).

The application of both these two tools could be even more impressive when speaking of adaptive facades. Real-time information regarding changes in their environments and loads and past events could be stored to improve their future performance or maintain serviceability.

In this way, producers could gain real-time feedbacks adapting ad hoc changes to facades components.

Anyway, still, the facade industry has a long way to go and, in any case, current literature shows that the transition toward circularity still requires a better understanding of material flows and stock.

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(3) M. Honic, I. Kovacic, H. Rechberger (2019), Improving the recycling potential of buildings through Material Passports (MP): An Austrian case study, in Journal of Cleaner Production 217, 787-797, Elsevier, https://doi.org/10.1016/j. jclepro.2019.01.212 (4) Ellen MacArthur Foundation and ARUP (2019), Urban buildings system summary, https://www.ellenmacarthurfoundation.org/ assets/downloads/Buildings_All_Mar19.pdf (5) O. Akinade, O. Lukumon, M. Bilala, S. O. Ajayia, H. A. Owolabia, H. A. Alakaa, S. A. Bello (2015), Waste minimisation through deconstruction: A BIM based Deconstructability Assessment Score (BIM-DAS), in Resources, Conservation and Recycling 105,167–176, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j. resconrec.2015.10.018 (6) R. Flanagan, C. Jewell, W. Lu, K. Pekericli, (2014), Auto-ID. Bridging the physical and the digital on construction projects, The Chartered Institute of Buildings, University of Reading (7) F. Xue, K. Chen, W. Lu, Y. Niu, G. Q. Huang, (2018), Linking radio-frequency identification to Building Information Modeling: Status quo, development trajectory and guidelines for practitioners, in Automation in Construction 93 241–251, Elsevier, https://doi.org/10.1016/j. autcon.2018.05.023

ECONOMIC INVESTMENT

SOCIAL INVESTMENT

- Recycle - Down cyc ycle c le Up

Certification

Housing Unit

ary of components Libr

Quality improvement

Storage

Dismantling plan

antling process Dism ACCESS TO MATERIALS’ INFORMATIONS

BRIDGE BETWEEN STAKEHOLDERS

ECONOMIC SAVINGS

The organism of Material Bank and its tasks.

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Research, in this regard, needs to focus more on the real material availability at least at a city scale based on their properties, to reliably estimate the percentage that can be reused and considered on the material banks of cities.

Moreover, handling this kind of precise organisation would require some efforts from different parts. The bank shall rely on specific qualified experts, able to use specific tools (as BIM technologies and Radio Frequency Identification) and shall be made of the collaboration between all the stakeholders of this construction chain.

Currently, policymaking and research are trying to act in this direction.

The BAMB project, (Buildings As a Material Bank), funded by European Commission within Horizon 2020, tries to create ways to understand and increase the value and reuse of building materials. They experiment through the construction of prototypes and pilot projects to hypotheses that building materials can sustain their value and avoid materials’ wastes.

In this regard, the city of Reburg marked an important stepping stone, as the world’s most circular city (8). Here, Circular Economy is defined by using Design for Disassembly and the consequent realisation of a Material Bank; through knowledge dissemination and the development of new industry and circular social dynamics; through new technologies and the improvement of virtualisation.

Public institutions, in this regard, as neutral mediators between users and industries could assume the role of building materials’ and components’ bank, forming an integrated territorial system that could work from the micro to the macro scale, through the formation of a net of regional or urban building banks integrated into a wider complementary territorial smart grid.

The urban project of Sidewalk Labs, an urban innovation company working to make cities more sustainable and affordable for all (9), mentions the ambition to create an integrated territorial system of Material Banks, sharing informations and materials, in order form a library of building parts that could be combined in thousands of ways, developing a digital management system that coordinates the entire supply chain from conception to completion. (10) In Switzerland, the project by Experimental Unit NEST (UMAR – Urban Mining and Recycling, 2018), emphasized the possibility for the building to be at the same time a material laboratory, temporary material storage and a public repository of information. Heisel and Rau-Oberhuber, analysing with Madaster (a register of material and products) this project, demonstrated at the same time not just its circularity (96%), but also the reliability of Madaster Circularity Indicator as a design tool and the capability of materials passports to document material stocks and flows within a circular built environment (11).

Anyway, so far within the Madaster database, there is no other circular case study with a comparable level of detail to the one of UMAR. Last but not least, the project Resource Row, in Copenhagen, by Lendager Group represents a good example of how part of the components originating from old structures without Design for Disassembly can be directly reused in a new structure.

Through the use of selective smart demolition, architects used a cutting process to extract monolithic modular blocks of the external facade made of bricks, in order to stack them up to create the external walls of the new project.

This innovative approach made it possible to recycle bricks and give them many lives instead

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(8) https://www.bamb2020.eu/future/ reburg/ (9) https://sidewalklabs.com/ (10) Side Walk Labs (2019), Toronto Tomorrow.

A new approach for inclusive growth. Part 2: The Urban Innovations, https://sidewalktoronto-ca.storage.googleapis.com/ wp-content/uploads/2019/06/23135715/ MIDP_Volume2.pdf (11) F. Heisel, S. Rau-Oberhuber (2020), Calculation and evaluation of circularity indicators for the built environment using the case studies of UMAR and Madaster, J. Clean.

Prod. 243, 118482. doi.org/https://doi. org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2019.118482 On the right: Lendager Group, The Resource Row, Cutting process Photo: https://lendager.com/en/ architecture/resource-rows/ Next page: Lendager Group, The Resource Row, Work in progress Photo: https://lendager.com/en/ architecture/resource-rows/

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of just one – which results in a reduced CO2 emission in the construction phase: by reusing the walls from the abandoned dwellings as new facade elements, you save CO2 and virgin materials, while also getting a new building with history and character from day one. (12) Therefore, the bank could pave the way for effectively performing a further and repaid reuse of components and perfecting current recycling of materials, to contribute a more sustainable built environment.

. The business model of leasing While in a traditional (linear) production chain the concept of value is related to profit, based on how much customers are willing to pay the ownership of a product delivered by a provider, in the realm of circularity, the concept of value is understood more broadly to encompass a wider range of stakeholders, such as value chain partners, the environment and society (13).

Hence, defining Circular Economy Business Models depends on the value chain structure, identifying material reuse processes, transportation distances, site conditions, and quantities of materials.

One of the most successful business models for capturing value in Circular Economy is the performance-based model, also known as Leasing Business Model. According to this concept, instead of conventionally selling products, it’s possible to offer products as services, with a lower cost up front.

Leasing represents a shift from an ownership economy to an access economy, or ondemand economy, as access to an asset takes precedence over ownership.

Customers pay for the time or usage of a certain product, for either a short or long contract period. Nevertheless, the ownership of that product remains throughout the entire lifecycle to the provider, who is responsible of its design, usage, maintenance, reuse, remanufacture and recycling.

This kind of system is opened both to individuals and companies and can be developed through different business strategies, according to the degree of accessibility.

In case of Pay per service unit, customers pay each time they use the service, while the provider, responsible for all life cycle costs of the product, is incentivised in designing an optimised product for usage, maintenance, reuse, remanufacture and recycling.

Office printers are an example of this system. Customers pay the number of pages printed, the paper and ink required, the servicing; the manufacturer, instead, provides a working machine and the consumables to go with it.

In case of Product renting or sharing, customers pay to access the product for a certain period and other customers sequentially will use the product.

It’s the case of car sharing, for instance.

Product Lease means that, even if the ownership is still retained by the provider, the customer has continuous access to the product. The provider typically controls, maintains and collects the product at the end of the leasing agreement.

It’s the case of Philips pay per lux, above mentioned.

We speak of Product pooling, instead, when the product is simultaneously used by many customers.

A typical example is car-pooling where multiple people use the product at the same time.

Over time, leasing has became a lever of circular economy, as it allows a closer relation between customers and industries.

It offers the possibility for producers to have a better understanding of the users’ need, providing

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(12) lendager.com (13) N.M.P. Bocken, S.W. Short, P. Rana, S. Evans (2014) A literature and practice review to develop sustainable business model archetypes, J. Clean. Prod.

65, 42–56, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j. jclepro.2013.11.039.

faster innovation, and for the customer, consequently, to gain a higher level of satisfaction concerning the provided service.

Moreover, it gives an alternative to the classic make, use, toss model by creating reuse options based on repairing and reselling products, with a reduction of the volume of raw materials and energies and thus of wastes generation.

PAY PER SERVICE UNIT

Recently some academic researches has tried to use this business model to reform the housing sector, rethinking the traditional way of conceiving the house as something fixed and permanent.

PRODUCT RENTING / SHARING

PRODUCT LEASE

PRODUCT POOLING

The owner The client The product

(14) https://www.tudelft.nl/bk/onderzoek/ projecten/green-building-innovation/ facade-leasing/facade-leasing-pilotproject-at-tu-delft

The Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment of Delft University has especially deepen this topic in relation to the element of facade.

The research concerns the development of a circular business model based on the use of multifunctional façades as performance-delivering tools (14). For this reason, in September 2016 a consortium of companies, ranging from component suppliers to façade fabricators, installed a pilot project, replacing temporarily a section of the façade on the low-rise building of the Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Sciences at TU Delft, seen as an icon of modernist architecture quickly reaching technical obsolescence.

Till now, this project has demonstrated two facts.

It has displayed over time the state of art of facade integrated technologies and the need to find solutions for the development of contracts, financing structures, and operational services to turn Façade Leasing into a feasible and implementable proposition.

Moreover, the project demonstrated how Façade Leasing could accelerate the market uptake of new building technologies, with an optimisation of the reuse and recycling of components and materials within the construction industry, by keeping these technologies in the hands of their manufacturers.

In 2018 the project consortium has received further funding for the upscaling of this research pilot project to a large scale practical demonstrator case-study. The target building, methodology, and objectives of this new project stage are currently being discussed and therefore results and final considerations are not available yet. This last demonstrator case-study focuses on the theme of policy, bringing together architects, builders, developers, and managers of buildings, as well as lawyers, financiers, scientists, and business developers, to produce the first practical example of a Façade-as-a-Service performance contract.

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Researchers have great expectation regarding the application of this model. By outsourcing the management and upgrade of technological systems to the suppliers responsible for developing them it’s possible to achieve higher performance and lower at the same time the initial investment. Moreover, circular loops would be facilitated, as suppliers who retain the ownership of their products have a significant incentive to extract maximum value from them as they reach the end of their service-life (14).

The concept of sharing economy The business model of leasing is partially link to the Business Model of Sharing Economy. This term refers to the sharing activity of underutilised assets with the help of it-based technology.

As Leasing Economy, Sharing Economy demonstrates the benefit of capturing value with short-term access-rights to a product or service (15).

The bottom idea is to share items’ ownership between people who don’t make full use of them and thus couldn’t pay them back fully through their constant use: People Don’t Need a Drill. They Need a Hole In The Wall (16).

Sharing is clearly not something new. Internet development though has leaded over time to the emergency of several new business models and new types of companies, reducing transaction costs and making sharing assets cheaper and easier than ever—and therefore possible on a much larger scale. As a result, users can borrow goods from strangers and lend to them, because the Internet has decreased transaction costs between participants (17). The big change is the availability of more data about people and things, which allows physical assets to be disaggregated and consumed as services.

If, before the internet, renting whatever kind of item from someone else was difficult, mainly due to lack of medias, now websites such as Airbnb, RelayRides and SnapGoods emerge to fill this missing connection, matching up owners and renters. New technologies had a great role in this transition. GPS, for instance, let people see where the nearest rentable car is parked; social networks provide a way to check up on people and build trust; online payment systems handle the billing (18).

The emergency of this new model needs to be probably researched in the context of the postfinancial crisis of 2007-2008, when people, who was experiencing financial difficulties, started evaluating their consumption patterns and the value of ownership. (19).

Nowadays the power of sharing economy is also enhanced by the increasing scarcity of resources, urbanisation, and social and demographic changes.

This kind of collaborative consumption, one of those many terms that can be easily referred to the umbrella concept of sharing economy, has several positive consequences.

In economic terms, owners can make money from underused assets, while renters pay less than they would if they bought the item themselves.

Moreover, Sharing Economy reduces the environmental impact, as it results in an efficient utilisation of physical assets: renting a car when you need it, rather than owning one, means fewer cars are required and fewer resources must be devoted to making them. (18) In terms of sociality, it facilitates social contacts as it implies the relation with other people and collaboration can also create innovation, jobs and community (20).

At an urban level, sharing could bring people together and stimulate social cohesion in neighbourhoods (21). In this concern, surveys show that people in high-density, walkable communities are more likely to trust or socialise with their neighbours, volunteer or vote (22).

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(15) A. Daunoriene, A. Drakšaitė, V. Snieška, G. Valodkiene (2015), Evaluating Sustainability of Sharing Economy Business Models, in Procedia: Social and Behavioural Sciences 213: 836–841.

(16) M. Yusupov (2018), People Don’t Need a Drill. They Need a Hole In The Wall, in Email Marketing, News & Updates, 24 of September, https://blog.cloudy.email/ people-dont-need-a-drill-they-need-a-holein-the-wall/ (17) K. Frenken, J. Schor (2017), Putting the Sharing Economy into Perspective, in Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions 23, 3–10 (18) The Economist (2013), Peer-to-peer rental The rise of the sharing economy, 9 of March, https://www.economist.com/ leaders/2013/03/09/the-rise-of-the-sharingeconomy (19) W. Kathan, K. Matzler, V. Veider (2016), The Sharing Economy: Your Business Model’s Friend or Foe?, in Business Horizons 59, 663–672 (20) N. Krueger (2012), Bridging Town and Gown: Best Practice? An Essay on Growing the Local Entrepreneurial Ecosystem, in International Journal of Business and Globalisation 9, 347–358 (21) J. Agyeman, D. McLaren (2015), Sharing Cities: A Case for Truly Smart and Sustainable Cities, Mit Press, Cambridge (22) C. Montgomery (2017), Tackling the crisis of social disconnection, in Happy City. Walkability, 1st of July

The architectural translation of Sharing Economy usually means designing places to eventually provide human connections: a business event based in sharing goods and services in a free platform. (23)

In this scenario, the concept of flexibility turns central, as a way to provide freedom of spaces’ configuration and changes over time, in a continuous process of adaptation depending on needs. People could actively shape the space, feeling a new sense of belonging that makes them participants rather than visitors, taking care of their space. (23) Space adaptation would depend on the different degrees of privacy users need, blurring the threshold between public and private and developing potentially interesting social dynamics.

According to a survey published by SPACE10, a research and design lab focused on sociality and sustainability, the interest of people in sharing living spaces within small groups, from 4 up to 25 components, will increase by 2030, not just as a way to save money, but as a solution to have a satisfying social life (24).

Part of the reason is that young people increasingly choose not to live with their families until they get married, but instead find a place of their own. Another part is the rise in divorce rates.

An interesting finding regards the interest in living with people with different backgrounds and ages, forming a natural social mix. In this regard, home-sharing models are also beginning to support more vulnerable groups in society. For example, intergenerational home sharing for the young and elderly is solving issues of loneliness and affordability. (25) Sharing spaces could also be related to rhythms of use.

As above mention, the same space could adapt to different functions depending on time or more spaces together could work as a unique integrated system.

Technology, in this vision, could have still a role.

The start up Spacious is exactly based on this concept. In San Francisco and New York City it provides an intermediary platform that connects restaurants and customers, showing real-time tracking about fluxes of people and enabling the customer to select spaces that are less busy, helping at the same time less-known places to be attractive.

(23) C. Tham (2018), Share, Like, Love: Why designing for the sharing economy is different, in Roca Gallery, 31st of August, rocagallery.com/share-like-love-whydesigning-for-the-sharing-economy-isdifferent (24) SPACE10 (2018), One Shared House 2030: This Is How You Designed It, in SPACE10, 3 of March, https://space10. com/welcome-to-one-shared-house-2030this-is-how-you-designed-it/ (25) https://homeshare.org/abouthomeshare-international/abouthomesharing/ Next page: Copenhagen FabLab. A free open access, shared and user-driven tool workshop.

Photo: http://valby.copenhagenfablab.dk

Due to the current pandemic of Covid-19 surely the concept of sharing economy has experienced a sharp slowdown. Notwithstanding, this kind of Business Model has still its importance in view of current Environmental conditions and on-going urban policies.

Moreover, new platforms, as the above mentioned Spacious, show how Sharing Economy could be used also in view of social distancing, providing the conditions for social life over a pandemic.

Nevertheless, Sharing Economy still lacks of an integrated and organic regulation in order to solve problems related to tax system and to workers’ rights, (let’s think, for instance, to gigeconomy).

The post-pandemic, asking for an improvement, or at least an adaptation, of innovative business models, could be a good moment to solve also these issues.

. What urban policymakers can do Core urban benefits of a Circular Economy development path include the possibility to reduce the need for new construction, improve urban land use, reduce construction and operational costs, and increase resource-efficiency, while strengthening local economy.

Design for Disassembly and circular urban policies needs to be closely integrated to be effective overall. A building can last for over a century and more, which means how cities address their

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urban housing needs today, both in construction and management terms, will define urban development for decades to come.

In this regard, innovations within the construction and housing sectors can, if applied with a circular economy approach, provide the solutions we need to face the above mentioned problems regarding demographic growth and urban drift.

By integrating Circular Economy principles early in the urban development process, planners can ensure that cities’ infrastructures are conducive to the effective reuse, collection, and redistribution of resources such as water, organics, industrial by-products and building elements, in order to provide at the same time sustainability and affordability. These following strategies and case studies, combined with innovative Business Models and to new processes of Design for Disassembly and Material Bank, could help planners to design new Circular cities.

. Planning for compactness Planning compact urban spaces and land-use can reduce energy consumption, still providing liveable, functional, and socially mixed neighbourhoods with a dense structure made up of small-scale urban blocks and compact street patterns.

In this regard, more than 30 years ago, the city of Curitiba started to grow using a compact city development strategy, which entailed mixed-use development and densification along five transport corridors served by a bus rapid transit (BRT) system. The development strategy has helped to improve the use of urban land, increase public transport use, and reduce the demand for private transport fuel. Today, Curitiba is one of Brazil’s wealthiest cities, and the city has managed to maintain some of the lowest congestion and transport costs in Brazil (around 10% of income) (26).

. Planning with the context in mind Site specific urban planning can reduce energy and materials’ wastes by using local available resources.

The plan for the regeneration of the Old Oak and Park Royal districts, in London, based on Circular Economy principles, goes in this direction. The plan aims to create more than 25,500 new homes and 65,000 jobs in 640 hectares of residential and industrial area, ensuring at the same time optimal local materials circulation. In this regard, by capturing local resources such as water, heat, organics, and solid waste for reuse and using underused space for farming, the plan aims to ensure the area’s environmental and economic resilience. Moreover, it strives for the development of an exemplary world class neighbourhood underpinned by new business models, as well as new cultures of collaboration, innovation and community engagement (27).

Key opportunities are for buildings, fitouts, infrastructure, and spaces to be designed for reuse and disassembly from the outset, as well as resource-efficiency, sharing, and adaptability.

. Mapping the building stock to rethink the asset management Setting out a clear roadmap and strategy for the urban building stock is crucial to inform and direct policy levers with long-term consequences (25).

As above mentioned in view of the creation of a Material Bank, informations about the available assets of cities in terms of materials is essential.

In view of Sharing Economy, instead, knowledge about the existence of underused spaces can lead to the increasing utilisation of publicly owned buildings by making them available for use, implementing city dynamics.

In this regard, the experience lead in New York City is quite interesting. The city has a large number of publicly owned vacant lots. A citizen-driven pilot project, 596 Acres, thus, created

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(26) Ellen MacArthur Foundation and ARUP (2019), Planning for compact, connected cities, https://www. ellenmacarthurfoundation.org/assets/ downloads/1_Buildings_Planning_Mar19. pdf (27) ARUP, OPDC, LWARB (2017), Circular and sharing economy scoping study for Old Oak and Park Royal

an interactive crowdsourced map of vacant space, and assisted neighbourhood - led campaigns to turn inner-city land into community space, such as gardens, farms, and playgrounds that support social cohesion and effective land use.

Moreover, through convening and partnering with residents and platform providers, and through regulation, urban policymakers can also support home and office sharing in a manner that preserves the benefits while mitigating unintended negative consequences. If buildings and rooms are designed by intention for sharing and multi-use, the benefits of these opportunities can be amplified.

. Providing affordable housing for everyone Making spaces affordable to those who otherwise cannot afford it, creating stronger social bonds through space leasing and sharing, is a way to support different vulnerable social groups in a cost-efficient manner. Covering the affordable housing gap with the use of innovative public procurements is essential to make liveable cities.

In this regard, as above mentioned, Social Housing development can have an important role.

Nowadays, the state of art of affordable housing is mainly characterized by building quality compromised by costs savings objectives, low-end implementation standards and lack of maintenance operations, which produced time after time performance obsolescence in the dwellings and a bad perception from inhabitants and community (28).

Today it can redeem from its historical association to simple cheap housing becoming a sector of development for social enterprises and an opportunity to reply to the increasing housing demand.

The sector shall lower the entrance to the public housing market, including the grey area (29) of outsiders, members of middle class fallen into poverty, not involved in affordable housing programs, but not able to buy a private house.

Moreover, it shall provide a diversified range of rents, to reach a remarkable social mix of tenants and hence avoid the ghettoisation of disadvantaged groups and this could be easier when considering new financial and funding models, integrating private and public sectors and fostering new partnerships’ models.

. Fostering the concept of vicinity In order to avoid monofunctional urban segments that would cause situations of obsolescence and vacancies, city governments shall push toward the generation of policentric cities.

The concept of vicinity shall be central in order to provide urban dynamics in every part of the city, avoiding in that way the development of peripheries.

(28) V. Gianfrate, C. Piccardo, D. Longo, A. Giachetta (2017) Rethinking social housing: Behavioural patterns and technological innovations, in Sustainable Cities and Society 33,102–112, http:// dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.scs.2017.05.015 (29) G. Napoli (2015), The economic sustainability of residential location and social housing. An application in Palermo city, in XLIII incontro di studio del Ce.S.E.T., 257–277.

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What Urban Policy-makers can do

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Urban planning based on compactness

Site specific urban planning

Informations concerning spaces of the city

Compact settlements can reduce energy consumption.

It means planning and designing liveable, functional, and socially mixed neighbourhoods that have a dense structure made up of small-scale urban blocks and compact street patterns.

It looks at local natural and social resources, with the aims to ensure the area’s environmental and economic resilience.

Be aware of our cities’ weaknesses is the first step to improve it and make it stronger and cohesive. Undefined spots in fact are the more potential ones.

Rethinking the asset management

Providing affordable housing for everyone

Fostering policentric cities

Increasing utilisation of publicly owned buildings by making them available for use through sharing schemes.

Creating stronger social bonds through space leasing and sharing, as a way to support different vulnerable social groups in a cost-efficient manner.

The concept of vicinity shall be central in order to provide urban dynamics in every part of the city, avoiding in that way the development of peripheries

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Considerations about the future

“The world will not evolve past its current state of crisis by using the same thinking that created the situation” - A. Einstein -

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Today a slow but still ongoing transition toward Circular Economy seems to be underway.

Its importance is emphasized through policymaking, research and industry (1). In this regard, the first World circular economic forum of 2017, hold in Finland, with the participation of well-known brands as Ikea, Dell and Philipps Lighting, showed that somehow a gradual change is underway.

In view of a sustainable future, new public policies and strategies are progressively emerging.

European Commission is fostering processes of Circular Economy to promote a sustainable consumption, ensuring that used resources are kept in the EU economy for as long as possible.

Moreover, since 2017, it has periodically published pamphlets regarding Design for Disassembly and the application of Circular Economy to the construction sector (2017, 2018, 2019).

Still in the public sector, the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP), as one of the outcomes of the Rio + 20 conference in 2012, set up an initiative to promote sustainable public procurement (UNEP, 2014), with the goal to link the consumption side to the production side, through governmental public procurement and the development of more sustainable business models.

Two years later, the UN Sustainable Development Goals had a great impact in shaping the agenda for change. In this regard, even if these global goals are intended to be used together, specific reference to materials is identified in goal 12, about sustainable consumption (2).

In the private sector, instead, the action of the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, a charity dedicated to promoting the global transition to Circular Economy, has been quite relevant and influent.

(1) Regarding policies, let’s think, for instance, to the role of promotion of circular economy in the private sector of Ellen MacArthur Foundation or, concerning the public, to the new european policies fostered by the European Green Deal.

Moreover, in recent years several researches have been conducted over the topic, as the above cited ones can witness.

Industry and architecture are also fostering the transition toward a circular production.

In the architectural field are remarkable, between the others, the experiences of GXN, Lendager Group and Vandkunsten.

(2) Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns. https://sdgs.un.org/goals/goal12

Its ReSOLVE framework gained a great importance, outlining six actions to guide the transition from linear to circular processes: 1. Regenerate: regenerating and restoring natural capital 2. Share: maximising asset utilisation 3. Optimise: optimising system performance 4. Loop: Keeping products and materials in cycles, prioritising inner loops 5. Virtualise: displacing resource use with virtual use 6. Exchange: Selecting resources and technology wisely Research and design experimentation are also improving.

The Circle House by Lendager Arkitekter, GXN Innovation and 3XN, and Vandkunsten Architects, in Aarhus, Denmark marks a stepping stone for Design for Disassembly. The project consists of 60 social housing units built through the principles of Circular economy and it has the aim to reuse 90% of the materials it is made of without appreciable loss of value. It is an experiment that has the purpose to demonstrate the possibility for Design for Disassembly to design qualitative and sustainable spaces, disseminating knowledge and know-how about circularity principles to the entire construction sector. Sustainability and affordability work in a complementary way through several smart and innovative solutions, providing both flexibility of spaces and singular components, looking at maintenance as well as the last step of dismantling process through the reuse of several building systems retaining their original value.

In this regard, the interest toward Design for Disassembly has became particularly relevant

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in Denmark due to the shortage of sand that the country is currently facing and that would make the production of concrete, massively used in the construction sector, way more expensive, leading to import dynamics.

The call for the reuse of concrete components, therefore, becomes a real market need and gives the boost to deepen the research on the topic.

Nevertheless, Circular Economy and Design for Disassembly still need for their complete development technical, social, and organisational innovations throughout the value chain, from the production side to the consumption.

Circular design is a complex discipline involving different actors, knowledges and disciplines and it can’t be parcelled out. In this vision, innovation also regards the creation of connections and cooperations, through an interdisciplinary mindset.

One of the main issues about the development of Circular Economy in the construction sector is the lack of a consistent and reliable fixed method for its assessment.

Generally, the environmental impact of buildings throughout their life cycle can be estimated through Life Cycle Assessment. (3) This computational method translates inputs and outputs passing through the building over time into a diagram. These fluxes are further assessed through a series of Key Performance Indicators defining how the impacts are allocated in the various cycles of a component’s life. Notwithstanding, LCA tools still require improvements, as they do not suffice in the design situation for several reasons: data intensiveness, lack of available data in the design stage, and decision-makers’ lack knowledge on how to perform and interpret LCAs (4).

In this context, every action and decision represents an important stepping stone that could be expanded, integrated and scaled up.

Therefore, it’s time to think new ways to build and live, challenging our traditional concept of housing through an inter-disciplinary approach that combines engineering, economy and design.

In this vision, the project of architecture has the potential to acquire a holistic meaning which quality includes its positive effects on economy, ecology and sociality.

Sustainability doesn’t mean inevitably sacrifice. It can become, on the other hand, the necessary boost toward innovation.

(3) I. Z. Bribián, A. A. Usón, S. Scarpellini, (2009), Life cycle assessment in buildings: state-of- the-art and simplified LCA methodology as a complement for building certification in Build. Environ.

44, 2510–2520, https://doi.org/10.1016/j. buildenv.2009.05.001 (4) L. C. Malabi Eberhardt, J. Rønholt, M. Birkved, H. Birgisdottir (2021), Circular Economy potential within the building stock. Mapping the embodied greenhouse gas emissions of four Danish examples, in Journal of Building Engineering 33, Elsevier, https://doi.org/10.1016/j. jobe.2020.101845 On the right: ArcGency Studio, Copenhagen. The studio collaborated with 3XN -GXN Innovation to the publication of the series of pamphlets named Circle House Lab. Design for Adskillelse.

Copenhagen, October 2020.

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PHASE II

The project. Circular Economy can address environmental and socioeconomic issues related to affordable housing. In a circular urban framework, the thesis develops an innovative project of Social Housing through Design for Disassembly and Adaptability. It has the aim to rethink how we design, build, finance and share our future homes, neighbourhoods and cities, to allow for cheaper homes to enter the market, make it easier to live sustainably and affordably, and ensure more fulfilling ways of living together, with the potential to tackle some of the biggest challenges of the global housing crisis.

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Toward the design project

“Architecture (is) a theatre stage setting where the leading actors are the people, and to dramatically direct the dialogue between these people and space is the technique of designing” - K. Kurokawa -

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The project has the aim to give a contribution on the research toward circular construction systems with the development of an innovative construction and financial method. This new method has the goal to foster the concepts of affordability, convertibility, better liveability and sustainability in order to provide an alternative for the construction of our future homes and cities with economic and environmental benefits to builders, occupants, and communities.

We do believe in fact in the possibility for Circular Economy to be the key factor to face effectively the current housing crisis and the environmental issue.

The potentialities of concrete in Design for Disassembly: a promising challenge Concrete has several characteristics, such as durability, mechanical and fire resistance, global availability, variety of type and form, and flexibility in design and application, that give it significant potential for disassembly and reuse.

Today, it is one of the materials mostly used in the construction sector. Its linear production, though, counting on the use of more than 10 billion tons of sand and natural rocks a year, considerably contributes to degradation of natural habitat and to the generation of solid waste pollution (1). In this regard, according to Tam (2) around 50% of the total amount of waste generated from demolition and construction (about 5.5 billion tons) are concrete waste.

(1) B. Addis (2006), Building with reclaimed components and materials, Earthscan, UK (2) V.W.Y. Tam (2008), Economic comparison of concrete recycling: A case study approach, Resour. Conserv.

Recycl. 52 (5), 821–828, http://dx. doi. org/10.1016/j.resconrec.2007.12.001 (3) P. Crowther (1999), Design for disassembly to extend life and increase sustainability, in 8th international Conference on Durability of Building Materials and Components. Service Life and Asset Management, Institute for Research in construction, Vancouver (4) S. Huuhka, T. Kaasalainen, J.H. Hakanen, J. Lahdensivu (2015), Reusing concrete panels from buildings for building : Potential in Finnish 1970s mass housing in Resources, Conservation Recycling”, 101, 105–121, 10.1016/j. resconrec.2015.05.017 (5) M. Stacey (2011), Concrete: a studio design guide. RIBA, London (6) A. Glias, (2013) The ‘Donor Skelet Designing with reused structural concrete elements, Master Thesis in TUDelft University

The shift toward an alternative cyclic model in the production of concrete building elements would therefore result not just in a huge saving in terms of energy needed to materials manufacturing, but also in the avoidance of the associated CO2 emissions, solid wastes, and dust pollutants resulted from the demolition processes (3).

Converting concrete production from linear to circular models implies though the rethinking of traditional building systems based on the use of wet joints made of Portland cement.

It requires new ways of designing concrete structures in view of disassembly and further components’ reuse and adaptation, where elements such as wall panels, roof slabs, and even columns and beams can be disassembled without material loss or pollution to be reused in extending existing building or in the production of new ones, without any loss of value.

In most cases, in fact, concrete elements can be reused with no need for remanufacturing, as it can serve longer periods than its expected operative life.

Several experimental projects has recently shown and proven its effectiveness, with huge economic savings.

The Kummatti housing estate rehabilitation project, for instance, developed in Raahe (Finland, 2008) in 2008, resulted in 36% savings in construction costs (4) The design of a new housing project in Mehrow, near Berlin, witnessed another successful experience. The project included reuse of precast concrete elements, taken from unwanted buildings that have been constructed using Plattenbau construction technique. The project also resulted in 30% reduction in cost (5) Still in Germany, in 2001, the federal ministry of transport, building and housing fostered the creation of a research project called Recycling prefabricated building component for future generations with the aim to test the potential of dismantling and designing a house using reused components. The research actually showed how the total building costs when using reused building elements were 26% less than using new ones (6).

Nowadays the topic of circular building system, generally related to timber technologies,

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gains momentum also for concrete structures and find the interest of the architecture sector, as well as of industry.

In this regard, Peikko, a Finnish company born in 1965 that deals with technology concerning building concrete elements, is now paving the way toward the creation of innovative solutions for the production of bolted concrete structures.

These solutions were initially invented out of necessity. As cold weather in Finland didn’t allow for traditional casted connections, they needed to find alternative mechanical solutions.

It turned out that this type of joints were also avoiding long drying times and making the building easier and faster to assemble, (and thus disassemble).

Many of these solutions are currently in used, even though they’re finally cast in cement in order to prevent drew loosening. Nevertheless, the use of dissolvable binders could easily solved this problem, making bolted concrete structures completely reversible.

Double Skin Facade: a tool of circularity that belongs to urbanity The building skin is an architectural element which can offer excellent potential for disassembly.

Over the years, the element of building skin has progressively gain momentum in view of sustainability as a mediator between the inside and outside environment, controlling the flow of heat, light, noise, information and other media. It is the primary subsystem through which prevailing external conditions can be influenced and regulated to meet the comfort requirements of the user inside the building (7). Like skin and human clothes, this raiment, too, fulfils the tasks demanded of it by perfoming a number of functions made possible by means of the appropriate design and construction.

Starting from the 80’s, after the oil crisis and the emerging awareness about limited resources, double skin facades especially started to emerge, as a system flexible enough to meet climatic changes for most types of building use, providing at the same time both improved indoor climate and reduced use of energy.

Literature documents several definitions of Double Skin Facade.

Harrison and Boake (8) described it as a pair of glass skins separated by an air corridor, that acts as insulation against temperature extremes, winds, and sound and eventually contains sun-shading.

Uuttu (9) provides also some informations concerning the width of the cavity: from 20 cm to several meters.

In any case, the concept of Double Skin Facade is not new: Saelens, (10) recalls its origin in the description of a mechanically ventilated multiple skin façade made in 1849 by Jean-Baptiste Jobard, at that time director of the industrial Museum in Brussels. He mentions how in winter hot air should be circulated between two glazings, while in summer it should be cold air.

More simply even double windows of old palaces and blocks could be considered ancestors of Double Skin Facades.

When designed properly for Design for Disassembly as an independent element this type of technology offers a great amount of advantages in terms of Design for Disassembly and Circular Economy.

It is an integrated system, as it can be combined to solar panels and collectors, enabling their

relevant contribution to the building’s energy supply: building envelope optimised for energy aspects has a maximised passive capacity and hence represents the foundation for viable energy concepts in the future. Double facades can thus become active multifunctional facades, able

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(7)C. Schittich (ed.) (2017), Building skins.

New enlarged edition, Birkhauser Edition Detail (8) K. Harrison, T. Meyer-Boake (2003), The Tectonics of the Environmental Skin, University of Waterloo, School of Architecture http://www.fes.uwaterloo.ca/architecture/ faculty _projects/terri/ds/double.pdf (9) S. Uuttu (2001), Study of Current Structures in Double-Skin Facades, MSc thesis in Structural Engineering and Building Physics. Depart- ment of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Helsinki University of Technology (HUT), Finland, http://www.hut.fi/Units/Civil/Steel/SINI2.PDF (10) D. Saelens (2002), Energy Performance Assessments of Single Storey Multiple-Skin Facades, PhD thesis, Laboratory for Building Physics, Department of Civil Engineering, Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium

to deliver an ongoing indoor comfort service.

The placement of solar panels and collectors can happen in the way of segregation, when clearly distinguished from the facade, incorporation, when replacing conventional materials, or amalgamation, when they serve also other functions. Notwithstanding, whenever these components are on the exterior layer of the building, maintenance and replacement is easier, even if the use of high technologies could make more difficult a strategy of direct reuse.

This system has lower construction costs compared to solutions that can be provided by the use of electrochromic, thermochromic or photochromic panes, and still effective performance concerning both acoustic and thermal insulation.

Due to the additional skin, in fact, the thermal buffer zone formed in-between reduces the heat losses and enables passive solar gains, so that a good design of a double skin facade could even avoid the presence of any type of additional HVAC system, with a consequent radical reduction of energy consumptions.

It has potentially high level of transformability, in terms of technological adaptation.

The external skin can be easily technologically improved through the substitution of the panels it is made of. This concept becomes crucial when speaking of adaptive facades. Recognising changes in their environments and load and using past events to improve future performance or maintain serviceability, Adaptive Facades could enable a further improvement of the structural performance of the component over time. They could store detailed informations of their operative life and give feedbacks to their producers who could provide further innovations before its reuse.

In this regard, Double Skin Facade enables the avoidance of intrusive events of maintenance: the outer and the inner skin work together in a complementary way but they’re structurally independent.

This is important in terms of maintenance and Operative Life of the building as it means an incredible saving in terms of energy and costs, from the user point of view, who, in case of external panels substitution, can still live inside his housing unit, as well as for the constructor.

Due to its structural independency, Double Skin Facade permits a high level of construction adaptation.

This is crucial in terms of adaptation to the existing, as an additional layer applied for retrofitting purposes. Accelerating the rate and depth of energy renovations in buildings is in fact one of the biggest challenges currently facing the construction industry in view of circularity. Across Europe buildings constructed between the ‘50s and the ‘70s in fact are reaching the end of their service life and their facades are far below current standard as well, with a particularly high rate of energy consumption (11).

In this regard, it’s interesting the project of refurbishment by Lacaton & Vassal on the 530 logements in Bourdeaux, developing exactly this concept.

Double Skin Facade is also a tool of functional flexibility.

According to its width, variable thanks to the independency of the external skin, double skin facade could become an expansion of the housing unit, generating a winter garden that at the same time improve the indoor comfort and that could gain a social value when shared. This type of space could even brand the housing unit, as an openable buffer between the inside and the outside. Several projects all over the world actually used this as a leading concept of design.

Let’s just think, for instance, to the Winter Garden Housing by Atelier Kempe Thill, built in Belgium, or to the Milanofiori Housing Complex by Open Building Research and Como Arquitectos, where the double skin becomes a buffer between artificial and nature.

(11) https://www.tudelft.nl/bk/onderzoek/ projecten/green-building-innovation/ facade-leasing/facade-leasing-pilotproject-at-tu-delft

Moreover, the new upsurge in experimentation of recent years, where boundaries have been tested as well as visual conventions, and a new focus on new materials’ performance

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made the topic of building skin particularly fascinating as it has rarely been in the history of architecture. Set into a context, building skin can redefine entire segments of city, drawing more attention than any other building component.

In this framework, the correspondence between external appearance of a building and internal life established by Modernism loose of its significance and is questioned with growing intensity. At any rate, how does one maintain the postulate of reflecting uses on the outside, when these uses change several times over the life cycle of a modern building? (7)

The design principles The project stems from seven main goals whose combination is meant to enable the construction of affordable and circular Social Housing complexes. Having them in mind over the desing phase, they set an operational framework as key-performance indicators enabling an effective circular project based on the use of Design for Disassembly.

How can we achieve all of them and hence provide a reliable construction method for the construction of affordable and circular social housing?

A few exemplar references follow the theoretical explanation of each principle, offering a precedent to be further developed through the project.

Spatial flexibility Flexibility generally indicates different levels of transformation.

When the same building structure, defined by a certain design grid and by a certain amount of structural elements, offers several diverse indoor arrangements without implying intrusive and heavy construction interventions, it’s possible to speak of spatial flexibility.

In literature, Delirious New York by Rem Koolhaas could recall this concept when mentioning the contrast between the rigid urban grid of Manhattan and all the unique episodes it keeps together. The same rhythm generates different and almost infinite outcomes: (Manhattan) is a mountain range of evidence without a manifesto (12).

Replicability A building system is replicable when it can be replicated and adapted to several housing typologies and in different geographical context.

In this regard, we could also talk of technical flexibility of the structural system.

Demand adaptability The concept indicates the possibility for the user to adapt his housing unit according to his needs and budget of the moment.

In this scenario, over time, the housing complex can potentially grow or shrink, depending on the amount and type of housing demand. The housing unit thus complete progressively, over a long range of time, opening up a way for low-income groups to access better-quality housing while contributing to building longevity.

This concept of filling the grid in a free and temporary way is not new. It recalls the ‘60s and ‘70s, instead, with the Plug-In City by Archigram or the Spatial City by Yona Friedman.

In both the cases, a versatile and free sub-structure is ruled by a structural, perhaps infinite, grid of pillars and slabs. In the vision of Friedman, this spatial infrastructure shall have been designed for collective use.

Reuse

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(12) R. Koolhaas (1978), Delirious New York, Oxford University Press

Modularity permits the potential reuse of components over time without the need of further transformations, at least regarding shape and size.

A modular system, combined to a certain level of flexibility, can avoid standardisation and foster instead the simplicity of customisation. In terms of maintenance, modularity permits high levels of adaptation, as components could be easily substituted over time in order to grant high-performances over the whole operative life of the building.

Non-intrusive maintenance The independency of buildings’ system is required in order to facilitate eventual actions of maintenance and substitution over time.

Understanding systems and how they are integrated to the rest of the building’s structure is the first step to enable eventual episodes of self-maintenance, that would imply savings of energy and resources.

The concept recalls the theory of building layers by Steward Brand: if systems are independent, modifications of one of the systems won’t affect the others. Therefore the building system could easily adapt to eventual maintenance operations, avoiding intrusive procedures, that would cause for the users additional expenses in terms both of costs and energies.

The presence of an exterior independent involucre could conceptually recall the proposal of a geodetic dome over Manhattan of Buckminster Fuller: an ideal way to reduce energy consumptions of the city.

Moreover, the independency of the building involucre can offer the possibility to adapt to the context the building belongs too, in environmental and urban terms, without affecting interiors. Barcelona octagons, with their ordered and clear facades facing the street and their chaotic and diverse interior courtyards, conceptually represent this concept.

Selective sharing Sharing spaces and services is a way to improve affordability and to save money and energy.

Nevertheless, the aim of the project is to find a balance between the natural needs of both a private and a public life of each user. Rather than forcing, the project shall suggest spontaneous and informal social practices.

The current pandemic of Covid-19 asks a rethinking of the meaning of co-habitation and social housing. In this regard, data suggest that in the years to come shared living will become increasingly attractive to millions of people, as they struggle to find adequate and affordable housing in cities. Therefore, there’s the need to rethink common spaces, as into a hierarchy, defined by how many people can fit in.

Urban Branding In terms of circularity, this is an important factor to enhance the concept of vicinity at an urban scale and to give an identity to an entire urban segment.

Facade is crucial as it defines the exterior aspect of a building, in respect to the urbanity it belongs to. A radical, but still effective, example of this is the project called The Mountain

by BIG, an housing complex partially covered by an involucre that literally represents a Mountain. A way to make attractive, or at least to rise curiosity, a peripheral and till that time neglected district of the city.

Moreover, as border between private and public life, double skin facade can be perceived as a showcase of its users from the outside, and as a further buffer of division providing more privacy from the inside.

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CASE STUDIES

50 x 50 House for Mass Production, Mies Van Der Rohe. Maison Domino, Le Corbusier. Unité d’Habitacion, Le Corbusier. Quinta Monroy Social Housing, Elemental. Urban Village, Effekt. Farmhouse, Precht. Centre Pompidou, Renzo Piano and Norman Foster. Transformation de 530 logements, Lacaton and Vassal. Al-bahr towers, Aedas. Student housing Weesperstraat, Herman Hertzberger. La Borda, Lacol.

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50 x 50 House for Mass Production.

Mies Van Der Rohe Year: 1951 Location: Unbuilt

. Description With this project, unbuilt, Mies Van Der Rohe has the aim to address the question of mass-housing. Conceived as a prototype intended for industrial production, the House is a square enclosed within glass walls. A central fixed core, the only room of the house, including an open kitchen and two bathrooms, occupies the centre of the volume. The resulting open space can be then partitioned with furnitures, curtains or lightweight walls.

Only four exterior columns, located in the middle of each side of the square, carry the weight of the flat roof, enabling the presence of glass even in the 4 corners.

In this project, the concepts of free plan and neutrality of the space is taken to an extreme level in order to set the possibility to accomodate every changing need of the family or economic shift. . An example of Spatial Flexibility The freedom of this plan and the presence of a minimal structural system make this project an excellent example of Spatial Flexibility. Theoretically, space can be customised according to needs, in the framework of a structural grid regulating the design composition.

Technologies of that time wouldn’t been advanced enough to enable easy processes of construction and deconstruction. Notwithstanding, today the availability of more techniques and materials could enable this conceptual project to become real. . To know more: http://socks-studio.com/2013/11/23/a-50-x-50-house-for-mass-production-1951an-unbuilt-project-by-l-mies-van-der-rohe/ https://sixtensason.tumblr.com/post/117348287468/ludwig-mies-van-der-rohe50-x-50-house-1950-52

Mies Van Der Rohe, plan of the project.

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Maison Domino. Le Corbusier Year: 1914 Location: Unbuilt

. Description This new construction system has been first envisioned in the autumn of 1914, after the devastation of Flanders, in view of a future reconstruction.

Made of standardised elements of reinforced concrete, Maison Domino was a simple framework carrying floors and staircase. It’s the first example in architecture of free plan: an open system, a platform for residents to complete as they see fit, that could be adaptive to diverse building typologies. The open structure could be defined according to the needs of the user and to the ideas of the architect concerning the positioning, the size and the shape of services, partitions and external walls. . An example of Replicability Over time, the structure of the Maison Domino has became a normal procedure in architecture. It’s echo could be even observed in high-architecture. Rolex Learning Centre by SANAA, for instance, as a fluid landscape of nothing but floor, ceiling and columns.

In this regard, Maison Domino offered great degree of spatial flexibility and technical adaptability but, due to the material it was made of and to the use of wet joints, this structure couldn’t be suitable for disassembling and couldn’t permit a fast process of customisation. . To know more: http://www.fondationlecorbusier.fr/corbuweb/morpheus.aspx?sysId=13&IrisObj ectId=5972&sysLanguage=en-en&itemPos=102&itemCount=215&sysParentId= 65&sysParentName=home

Sketch of the Maison Domino by Le Corbusier, 1914.

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Unité d’Habitacion. Le Corbusier Year: 1947-1952 Location: Marseille, France

. Description Unité d’Habitation is a stepping stone in the carrier of Le Corbusier as well as, more broadly, in the history of architecture.

Through this project Le Corbusier advocates skyscrapers as units of integrated urban architecture which can achieve an exact, established function and occupy a pre-determined space, opposing to the concept of single-family housing. In this regard, modular housing units are integrated with services, aimed at guaranteeing the functional autonomy of the block.

Architecture is the product of rationality. Modular housing units, based on Le Corbusier’s theories of rate of scale anticipating the concept of Modulor and here used for the first time, are inserted into an existing permanent grid. As in the game of Tetris, modular units finally acquire a holistic meaning when grouped all together. . An example of Demand Adaptability The concept at the bottom of the design of the Unité D’Habitation is the presence of a tridimensional grid in which different housing modules and services can be plugged and piled. It is the outcome of a recurrent vision of that times, where city is envisioned in an architectural way, (Yona Friedman and the group of Archigram, as above mentioned, are some examples). According to that, single modules could be easily add and taken out from the grid according to demand and needs. Notwithstanding, the rigidity of the structural grid, the materials used, the introvert character of the overall block and the extreme rationality of the modules marked the failure of the complex and of the artificial replicability of cities. Even if theorised, the concept of plug-and-play wasn’t reality yet. . To know more: https://en.wikiarquitectura.com/building/unite-dhabitation-of-marseille/ http://www.fondationlecorbusier.fr/corbuweb/morpheus.aspx?sysId=13&IrisObje ctId=5234&sysLanguage=en-en&itemPos=61&itemSort=en-en_sort_string1%20 &itemCount=79&sysParentName=&sysParentId=64

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Le Corbusier and the model of Unité d’habitacion, Life Magazine, 1946.

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Quinta Monroy Social Housing. Elemental Year: 2003 Location: Iquique, Chile

. Description Chilean Government asked to Elemental to settle the 100 families of the Quinta Monroy, in the same 5,000 sqm site that they have illegally occupied for the last 30 years which is located in the very center of Iquique, a city in the Chilean desert, with a really low budget. Therefore, the challenge was how to build decent homes for these families when there was almost no money left for the housing itself after purchasing the land. Therefore, Elemental tried to make a more efficient use of the land, working with row houses, trying to make flexible typologies enabling for future expansions. The basic design idea is that Social Housing is here perceived as an investment rather than an expense. Hence, the architecture design involves just the housing core, half-a-house. Over time, users, according to their needs and budget, can decide to implement it. The initial dwellings are double-height, robust concrete block structures fitted out with the very basics — a kitchen, bathroom, some partition walls, and an internal timber stair. Each of these boxlike structures alternated with an empty space of exactly the same size, where family can expand their own home, configuring the space however they desired.

Each had the potential to become a generous family home. As the residents moved in, they could take these generous spaces and tailor the structure to their needs, customizing their space at their own expense and labor — adding color, texture, and life, developing a sense of pride, ownership in and belonging to their homes. With generous, customizable homes and a desirable location, each dwelling more than doubled in value within the space of a year. . An example of Demand Adaptability In a context where informality has been the norm for years, Elemental provides a framework that set the rules for self-construction. In this kind of social context, this approach is smart in the way it still enables for self-expression, even setting an order. People, in this way, can still feel a sense of belonging to their own shelter, as they have room for customisation.

Nevertheless, in another type of context this kind of approach could be problematic, as it basically leaves half of the house completely unfinished. The strategy therefore shall probably look at fostering adaptability through a structure that can host several functions and be easily customised according to needs. . To know more: https://dac.dk/en/knowledgebase/architecture/quinta-monroy/ https://www.plataformaarquitectura.cl/cl/02-2794/quinta-monroy-elemental

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Elemental. Quinta Monroy Housing Project.

Iquique, Chile. 2003-05 Photo: Tadeuz Jalocha

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Urban Village. Effekt Year: 2018 Location: Unbuilt

. Description The concept stems from a collaboration with SPACE10 on how to design and build homes, neighbourhoods and cities through Design for Disassembly.

Effekt thus creates a new building system for disassembly made of wood, that can be prefabricated, flat-packed and quickly assembled on site. This system, suitable both to generate housing prototypes and side functions, is made of customisable components. Therefore, the user can decide which ones suit him more according to his needs.

The architectural firm also envisions a new system to lower the entry point to the housing market, with a holistic approach toward Circular Economy in architecture that aims at finding solutions at different scaled and challenging our current way of inhabit our homes. . An example of Reuse In order to be effective in terms of Design for Disassembly, modularity is an essential feature of the project. Through the use of just a few components, it’s possible to design different housing units, that can be diversely piled to form more housing blocks.

The overall approach is coherent to the principles of Design for Disassembly, even if Effekt doesn’t report any news regarding the insertion of plumbings and services, as the kitchen and the bathroom. Plumbing is generally an issue in terms of Design for Disassembly, due to their low level of recyclability. . To know more: https://www.effekt.dk/urbanvillage

Effekt. Urban Village Project.

Render by Effekt.

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Farmhouse. Penda Year: 2019 Location: Unbuilt

. Description Architecture studio Precht has developed a concept for modular housing where residents produce their own food in vertical farms, in order to reconnect people in cities with agriculture and help them live in a more sustainable way.

Prefabricated A-frame housing modules made from cross-laminated timber (CLT) provide flexible living spaces and, on the external walls, space to grow vegetables. In this regard, each of the walls is made of three layers. An inner layer, facing the home interior, holding electricity and pipes; a middle structural layer filled with insulation; an outside layer holding all the gardening elements and a water supply.

Modules can differ for their external wall, that can be made of hydroponic units for growing without soil, waste management systems, or solar panels to harness sustainable electricity.

Assembling these modules according to each need, single-family users can build their own homes.

The smallest living configuration available is just nine square metres with a 2.5-square-metre balcony. Nevertheless, the system doesn’t limit the height of the tower, because it is adaptable to a different thickness of the structure. . An example of Modularity Penda develops the concept of urban sustainability from different points of view. Modularity and design for disassembling come with tools providing urban agriculture, that permits energy and resources’ savings. Moreover, these type of modules are interesting in the way walls can be structural and host plumbing as well, still being customisable on the external layer.

The choice to use timber in high-rise is also challenging but crucial as way more sustainable than a concrete structure, especially because of its lightness. . To know more: https://www.precht.at/the-farmhouse/ https://www.dezeen.com/2019/02/22/precht-farmhouse-modular-vertical-farms/ Render of the Farmhouse Tower by Precht.

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Centre Pompidou.

Renzo Piano and Norman Foster Year:1971-1977 Location: Paris, France

. Description Centre Pompidou, locally known as the Beaubourg, is a cultural landmark that has its structure and mechanical services visible on the exterior of the building.

The project, Described by Piano as a “big urban toy”, was the outcome of an international competition hold in 1971 and won by Roger and Piano, and it was finally completed in 1977. It contains six-storeys of large column-free spaces, that, due to the exterior placing of all the building services and structure, can be easily re-arranged when needed.

Alongside the exposed structure, Centre Pompidou’s facades are covered with colour-coded building services: blue marking its air-conditioning, yellow is for electrics, green denotes water pipes, and red highlights tubular escalators and elevators.

These stand out from a minimal curtain wall backdrop made from steel and a mix of glazed and solid metal panels that were designed to create the feeling of a transparent building envelope. . An example of Systems’ Independency The high level of flexibility of Centre Pompidou is given by the transfer of all the service systems on the outside of the building. In this way, internal composition doesn’t have to respect any type of constrain. Moreover, systems are in this way visible and accessible, as they follow an aesthetic of that times based on the honesty of the building system. Even if not specifically Design for Disassembly, this project could be read as a radical interpretation of systems independency and recognisability. . To know more: https://www.dezeen.com/2019/11/05/centre-pompidou-piano-rogers-high-techarchitecture/

Renzo Piano and Norman Foster, Centre Pompidou.

Photo: Michel Denancé.

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Transformation de 530 logements.

Lacaton and Vassal Year: 2011-2016 Location: Bordeaux, France

. Description The project consists of the transformation of 3 inhabited social buildings, as first phase of a renovation program for the ‘Cité du Grand Parc’ in Bordeaux.

Built in the early 60’s, these housing blocks, called G, H and I, with a height of 10 to 15 floors, especially gather 530 dwellings. In order to avoid big expenses, the economy of the project is based on the choice of conserving the existing building without making important structural interventions. Instead, generous winter gardens and gardens applied on facade are the key to enhance in a lasting way the dwellings quality and dimension. An opportunity to live outside, while being at home, to enjoy more natural light, to provide more spatial flexibility and openness toward landscape, while reaching high energetic standards.

In this regard, the outdoor spaces are large enough to be fully used (3,80m deep on the south facades of H and I buildings and on 2 façades of G building), developing generous, pleasant and performing dwellings, able to improve current living conditions, comfort and pleasure, and the overall urban image. . An example of Systems’ Independency The intervention of refurbishment here depends on the application of an entire independent new element of facade, that becomes at the same time a tool of sustainability, affordability and sociality. Moreover, the opening toward the exterior and therefore the improvement of the permeability of the block becomes a way to promote the building itself and to connect it to the urban context. . To know more: https://miesarch.com/work/3889 https://www.lacatonvassal.com/index.php?idp=80 https://www.floornature.it/lacaton-vassal-vince-eumiesaward-il-grand-parcbordeaux-14609/

The additional facade. Lacaton and Vassal, Transformation de 530 logements.

Photo: Philippe Ruault.

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Al-bahr towers. Aedas Year: 2012 Location: Abu Dhabi, Emirates

. Description The extreme weather conditions of Abu Dhabi, characterised by high temperatures and no rain and by an harsh environment where sand can easily compromise buildings’ structural integrity, give architects the boost to design an innovative and adaptive sun-sharing skin system. The system is applied over two 25-storey cylindrical office towers, parametrically designed based on islamic geometric mosaics.

In order to avoid extreme solar gains, that would result in a bad indoor climate, Aedas design a skinsystem of triangular screens arranged in a series of scalable hexagons fold up to create a solid solar barrier. The screen operates as a curtain wall, sitting two meters outside the buildings’ exterior on an independent linear actuator which enables it to function in response to the position of the sun, effectively reducing heat gain and glare by 50% while giving islamic vernacular a contemporary representation. The intelligent facade, together with solar thermal panels for hot-water heating and photovoltaic panels on the roof, minimize the need for internal lighting and cooling, altogether reducing total carbon dioxide emissions. . An example of Systems’ Independency This project is just an example of the advantages that a Double Skin Facade system can provide in terms of environmental adaptability and building characterisation.

This independent secondary skin becomes the smart tool to provide indoor comfort. Thanks to its modularity, eventual episodes of maintenance would imply the intervention just on one of the modules, without compromising the overall functionality of the structure. . To know more: https://www.designboom.com/architecture/aedas-al-bahar-towers/

The indipendent element of external facade. Aedas, Al- Bahr Tower.

Photo: Christian Richter.

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Student housing Weesperstraat.

Herman Hertzberger Year: 1959-1966 Location: Amsterdam, Netherlands

. Description The accommodation for married students shapes along a wide residential corridor, as a prototype for pedestrian streets with usable outdoor space.

Bedrooms are the only private space of the accommodation: living and dining area, as well as the kitchen and laundry are shared. . An example of Space Sharing What’s interesting of this project is the presence of several architectural details suggesting social interaction, without forcing it. This type of approach is visible in the corridor, that becomes an informal linear place of gathering. Nevertheless, the privacy of bedroom is still granted due to the interruption of this linearity with the creation of niches.

Surely, the will of sharing is stronger in a student house rather than in a residential complex. Notwithstanding, social housing could be a way to rethink the role of the adjective social, not just with the meaning of affordable but also of mutual support. Hence, the importance of re-thinking layers of sharing in order to be comfortable for both the parties: the user and the guest. . To know more: https://www.ahh.nl/index.php/en/projects2/14-woningbouw/135-studenthousing-weesperstraat-amsterdam

Informal interaction between users.

Herman Hertzberger, Student Housing Weespertraat.Photo: Johan van der Keuken and Herman Hertzberger.

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La Borda. Lacol Year: 2018 Location: Barcelona, Spain

. Description La Borda housing is a non-speculative housing cooperative with the first aim to enhance sociality and collectivity.

The building program proposes 28 units (40, 60 and 75m²) and community spaces, (as kitchens, laundry, multi-purpose spaces…) located all around a central court-yard, stretching and blurring the threshold between public and private life spheres. In this regard, future users had been consulted through workshops and periodical presentations during the design phase, in order to understand their specific needs.

Moreover, the project aims at lowering its environmental impact both in the construction work and during its operative life. For this reason, architects prioritized passive strategies to achieve maximum use of existing resources. . An example of Space Sharing The project is interesting in the way it develops the topic of sociality and sharing.

Living units are disposed linearly around a central courtyard, that also becomes the connection between spaces. Niches and open spaces make the internal courtyard dynamic and permit different types of relations between users. . To know more: https://www.archdaily.com/922184/la-borda-lacol

The courtyard. Lacol, La Borda.

Photo: Lluc Miralles

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Winter Garden Housing. Atelier Kempe Thill Year: 2015 Location: Amberes, Belgium

. Description The city of Amberes is currently trying to reply to the growing housing demand of the city. Thus, the project has the aim to foster a new expression of Flemish collective housing, capable of combining housing quality and urban density.

In this regard, Atelier Kempe Thill acts in two directions. On one side, it provides a high degree of flexibility thanks to the strategic position of the core of accessibility and to the use of internal movable partitions.

On the other, it decides to add a plus in terms of liveability thanks to the addition of wintergardens on both the long sides of the block. They ‘re averagely 10 m long with a depth of 2.6 m and they offer an in-between space to people who inhabit the housing units. . An example of Urban Branding The project is located in a new segment of the city, currently under development.

The insertion of winter gardens on massive blocks is a way to make them lighter and beautiful, branding the new area. They are also a sort of showcase for people living in, a buffer that makes a connection between inside and outside environment, between private and public. . To know more: https://archello.com/it/project/winter-garden-housing-antwerp-nieuw-zuid https://www.archdaily.com/916263/winter-garden-housing-atelier-kempe-thill

Photo by Photo: Architektur-Fotografie Ulrich Schwarz

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The project Given the above, the project envisions a new construction system with the aim to reply to the above mentioned goals of Circular economy and Design for Disassembly.

To achieve this result, the design project stems from the decision to use a modular bolted concrete structure, that provides durability, according to its life expectancy, resistance and possibility of reuse.

Building for disassembly doesn’t necessarily mean to build temporarily. It means, instead, to build something durable with the potentiality for it to be one day dismantled.

In order to reinforce and enhance the sustainability and liveability of each housing unit, the project makes use of the element of Double Skin Facade in a strategic way, as a qualitative tool characterising the new system, aesthetically, socially and environmentally speaking. It encloses the housing unit, that could thus be perceived as a sum of spaces, and gives them an holistic and integrated meaning, providing them with a better indoor climate and additional free space.

The combination of these systems and the use of an approach based on Design for Disassembly gives this construction method the potential to achieve all the mentioned goals of circularity.

In fact, it enables: Spatial flexibility. Differently from a traditional beams and columns structure, the use of

punctual and scattered shear walls permits more flexibility in the design of spaces. According to this innovative construction method, the concept of functional core breaks. The lack of distinction between service and structural walls results in more space adaptability over time and in the use of less material.

The element of facade contributes to this flexibility thanks to its level of ambiguity and uncertainty, that also means freedom in the way it is used.

Demand Adaptability. Even if totally refined, each housing unit, thanks to the presence of

scattered shear structural/service walls and to the additional space of the liveable double skin facade, could be eventualy increased depending on demand. Incremental housing does not necessarily imply the concept of unfinished.

Replicability. The simplicity of this system, made of just a few modular structural pieces, and

the use of concrete, that is one of the material mostly available and used worldwide, makes this system easily replicable.

The strategic use of the element of Double Skin Facade permits, instead, to avoid standardisation and to contextualise each building block, every time, according to each different location and to available local resources.

Reuse. The use of modular components permits potentially their further reuse. This especially

depends on the materials each component is made of. For what concern the structure, the use of concrete makes the possibility of reuse without any further process of remanufacturing possible, as has already been displayed by many past design experiences.

The project of Resource Row by Lendager group shows the same possibility concerning external facade. Nevertheless, the use of more technologically high-performance facade systems could prevent from direct reuse and need for more expenditures due to processes of recycling. The investigation shall thus focus on finding the correct balance between the positive impacts of high-tech components and their further recycling costs at the end of their life.

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Non-intrusive maintenance. The use of mechanical connections integrates building systems

maintaining their relative indipendency. The modularity of each building component and the accessibility of joints between elements permit to isolate and punctually fix eventual damages.

Moreover, the use of Double Skin Facade enable a continuity in the normal use of the housing unit over the overall operative life of the building, as, in case of modules reparation or substitution, user can still use the essential part of the housing unit, enclosed by the inner skin.

Space sharing. The element of Liveable Double Skin facade enables the creation of an

ambiguous space, not indoor and neither outdoor, a threshold between public and private space that could be eventually shared. The possibility to share it would result in fact in a higher degree of affordability, as a Space of transition, (...), equally accessible from both the private and public sphere; it is without saying that both the sides shall accept that the other one has the right of using it. (1).

Urban Branding. The element of Liveable Double Skin can become a way to make peripheral

segments of the city catchy and attracting, reinforcing eventually the concept of vicinity and of policentric city. Moreover, this threshold can be perceived as an individual showcase, expression of each user. It generally permits to rethink an aesthetic for Design for Disassembly into an urban context in a successful and engaging way.

Nevertheless, all these design goals can’t be reached if not integrated into a policy and financial framework ensuring the circularity of components and resources.

In the next chapter, thus, I’ll explain specifically the building system and the new financial model it envisions.

(1) H. Hertzberger (1991), Lezioni di architettura, Editori Laterza, 1996 Next page: R. Buckminster Fuller and S. Sadao (1960), The Dome over Manhattan.

The dome was conceived to decrease use of resources.

The new building system represents the same concept on the architecture scale: the skin of the building protects whatever spatial phenomenum happens inside while characterising its overall aspect and thus the context it belongs to.

Photo: https://medium.com/ designscience/1960-750843cd705a

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Home as a Service to achieve the goals of circularity in architecture

Spatial flexibility

Demand adaptability

Replicability

Reuse

The lack of distinction between service and structural walls results in more space adaptability over time and in the use of less material.

The element of facade contributes to this flexibility thanks to its level of ambiguity and uncertainty, that also means freedom in the way it is used, as an expansion of the interior space.

Even if totally refined, each housing unit, thanks to the presence of scattered shear structural/service walls and to the additional space of the liveable double skin facade, could be eventually increased depending on demand.

Incremental housing does not necessarily imply the concept of unfinished.

The system is simple and made of just a few modular structural pieces and for these reason it can be easily replicated over different typologies.

The element of Double Skin Facade permits, instead, to avoid standardisation and to contextualise each building block, every time, according to each different location and to available local resources.

The use of modular components permits potentially their further reuse. The structure, as made of concrete, can be reused without any further process of remanufacturing. The types of processes required for the reuse of the outer layer of facade, instead, depend on its hightechnology and materials.

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Non-intrusive maintenance

Space sharing

Urban branding

The use of mechanical connections permits the indipendency of building systems, resulting in an easier eventual maintenance over time, as damages can be isolated.

Moreover, in case of modules reparation or substitution, users can still use the essential part of the housing unit, enclosed by the inner skin.

Users could decide to share the space of threshold. This would result in a higher degree of affordability, as a Space of transition equally accessible from both the private and public sphere.

The element of Liveable Double Skin defines the aspect of the city and can enhance peripheral segments, reinforcing the concept of policentric city. This threshold permits to rethink an aesthetic for Design for Disassembly and Social Housing.

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Home as a service: a new building system

“Less, but better.”

- D. Rams -

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The new method the thesis proposes is called Home as a Service and it envisions: . A modular concrete building system designed for disassembly, that can be prefabricated, flat-packed and assembled on site. This ensures a more sustainable and CO2-reducing construction method, high degree of space adaptability over time and a circular approach to the management and life cycle of our buildings combined to durability. . A liveable double skin facade being the strategic element that characterises the overall building system. It provides space flexibility and adaptability for the user, while proposing each time a renovation of the aesthetic of design for disassembly due to its system independency. . A new financial model based on the concept of Building in Leasing that lowers the entry point to the housing market, making high quality housing affordable for users of all income classes, while re-establishing the connection between producers, developer and consumers. . A customisable modular system Through this building system homes can be designed following a few steps.

In order to be modular, the first design step consists in the setting of a design grid and of an external perimeter, defining the boundary between the building and its surrounding

environment. The grid dimension shall be chosen in view of the design of indoor spaces, that follows its rule. In this case the grid has been decided to be 1.5 m x1.5 m. It was the final outcome of a series of efforts made to find the module that could fit in the best way the maximum amount of spaces and housing typologies.

The second step of design consists in the positioning of structural segments and of the core of accessibility.

There are two types of structural shear walls, differing in size. By the way, they are both shaped to contain plumbing to provide more flexibility over time. Their position, as I’ll better explain in a few pages, depends on some structural rules enabling components’ interlocking and thus ensuring the stability of the block.

Nevertheless, from a compositional point of view, their location shall be carefully defined in order to potentially provide the highest amount of possible indoor space configurations.

It’s no coincidence, this is the most delicate step of design, structurally and architecturally speaking.

If the structure has been properly designed, over time it will be easily adapted to more configurations and needs. Potentially, this structure could even enable functional transformation of spaces.

Once segments have been placed, it’s possible to define indoor spaces, with the positioning of modular partition walls.

Kitchens and bathrooms shall fit in correspondance of structural walls, while the rest of spaces could be freely decided.

In the project, I decided to indicate a catalogue of just a few spaces, to result in a better clarity.

Nevertheless, the modularity of components could be the key to shape several and diverse rooms according to the users’ needs. Their position also defines the final area of the building

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threshold, the area in between the two layers of skin conferring the plus to the traditional existenzminimum.

At this point, the inner skin is defined.

It follows the external boundary of the structure defined by the shear walls. The inner skin will be orthogonal to shear walls placed on its boundary. In order to provide a considerable degree of freedom concerning the choice of components without loosing in the overall compositional clarity, the project plans the use of wooden panels and it includes seven different window panels, defined by interior spaces and aimed to confer to the block a high degree of openness.

Finally, the element of external skin completes the design process, wrapping the block.

I decided to leave this last building element slightly undefined as its circular process would differ from the one of the rest of the building components. In this regard, while the modular components of the structure, of the space plan, of services and inner skin would enter a circular process involving city governments and a public material bank, the components of external facade, in view of their role as first mediator between indoor and outdoor environment and to their potentiality concerning the performance of the building, would return to their private producers, that would be on their upgrade and further certification, still collaborating with public entities.

Over the whole design process, life expectancy of each building system has been crucial in the development of this new building system, defining both materials and mechanic connections between each element.

For this reason, after giving a first overview of the building components the system is made of, its explanation will follow the order of building layers as well, starting from the structure till the definition of the space plan.

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First step: setting of a design grid and of an external perimeter. The grid measures 1.5m x 1.5m..

Second step: positioning of structural segments and of the core of accessibility.

Third step: definition of indoor spaces.

Fourth step: definition of the inner skin.

Fifth step: the external skin wraps the

building.

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The design components Design components has been defined by the life expectancy of the building system they belong to.

Their size depends on their interlocking.

The project especially envisions the reuse of concrete structural elements.

Further research on materials, though, could lead to the ideal complete reuse of all the modular components and of their materials.

High-tech components, especially regarding the external layer of the element of double skin facade, could return to their producers to be further updated. The inner layer could be instead periodically defined by users.

As a consequence, the operative life of skin has been adapted to reply to its innovative use.

Structural shear walls are the base of innovation of the system as they’ve been designed to fit plumbing, resulting in more semplicity and flexibility, as it permits to edit spaces over time avoiding intrusive maintenance.

1.

Shear walls 1. (1.5mx0.4mx3.2m) 2. (1.7mx0.4mx3.2m) Beams 1. (1.5mx0.6mx0.4m) 2. (3mx0.6mx0.4m) 3. (7.5mx0.6x0.4m) 4 (7.3mx0.6x0.4m) 5. (5.6mx0.6mx0.4m) 6. (5.8mx0.6mx0.4m) Slabs 1. (3mx1.5mx0.4m) 2. (3mx1.3mx0.4m) 3. (1.5mx1.5mx0.4m) Stairs Tread: 0.28m Step: 0.17m

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2.

Interior facade.

Opaque components 1. (0.5mx0.1mx2.8m) 2. (0.65mx0.1mx2.8m) 3. (0.75mx0.1mx2.8m) 4. (0.8mx0.1mx2.8m) 5. (0.85mx0.1mx2.8m) 6. (1.50mx0.1mx2.8m) Glazed components 1-2. Single glass door: (0.7mx0.1mx2.7m) 3-4. Tall window: (0.7mx0.1mx2.7m) 5. Single glass door 2: (1.4mx0.1mx2.7m) 5-6. Double glass door: (2.8mx0.1mx2.7m) Exterior facade.

1. Green panel: (1.5mx0.03mx3m) 2. Opaque panel: (1.5mx0.03mx3m)

The structure (1).

30-300 years

Shear walls

Beams

Slabs 3. Single glazed panel: (1.5mx0.03mx3m) 4. Double glass door: (6mx0.1mx3m)

3.

Interior insulation panels 1. (0.5mx0.1mx2.8m) 2. (0.65mx0.1mx2.8m) 3. (0.75mx0.1mx2.8m) 4. (0.85mx0.1mx2.8m) 5. (1.5mx.0.1mx2.8m)

3-ramp stairs

Stairs insulation panels 1. (0.5mx0.2mx2.8m) 2. (0.6mx0.2mx2.8m) Timber cladding 1. (0.35mx0.015mx2.8m) 2. (0.5mx0.015mx2.8m) 3. (0.6mx0.015mx2.8m) 4. (0.65mx0.015mx2.8m) 5. (0.85mx0.015mx2.8m)

2-ramp stairs

The double skin facade (2).

5-50 years

Space plan and services (3).

3-30 years

Pipes

Interior facade

Insulation panels

Metallic U-profiles

Exterior facade

Timber cladding

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A prefab system The building system is totally prefabricated in order to be easily assembled and eventually disassembled and stocked.

Structural components are made of concrete, that is largely available worldwide and has great durability without loosing in strenght and resistance.

Materials concerning the rest of the building systems shall be chosen instead according to the project location, so that to use local resources, in terms of both materials and knowledge. Due to their size, components can be transported also on wheels.

Extraction

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Pre-fabrication

Transport

Assembling

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The structural system.

Bolted connections The structure of this new building system is made of modular bolted concrete prefab components, meaning that mechanical joints connect slabs, beams and shear walls.

What mostly defines this structural solution is the use of structural walls integrated with pipes.

This solution enables an high degree of flexibility, as, every structural segment, (1.5 or 1.7 m-long) permits the allocation of a service.

For each component, bolts are placed in embedded anchor boxes in prefab recesses, in order to be visible and easily accessible from the exterior side of the elements. Peikko has recently developed a system using the same principle for structural elements called Anchor Bolt. In this case, though, bolts need to be finally casted in concrete in order to avoid to come unscrewed. The use of dissolvable binders though, would solve this issue, ensuring structural safety and possibility of disassembly.

The new system plans their use for the interconnection of shear walls, beams and slab, between inner facade’s components and to provide continuity between slabs and beams. To avoid eventual cracks on components due to tension, the project envisions the addition of pre-tensed rebars anchoring the boxes to each structural element.

The external facade instead grabs at an external metallic profile on which it is screwed. Anyway, the presence of the metallic profile shall enable several types of connections, according to facade variations.

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Exploded axonometry of the building structure and of the element of Double Skin Facade. Shear walls are connected between them and to foundations using the technology of Peikko Sumo Wall Shoe.

Beams, instead, connect to the walls using the technoogy of Peikko Hidden Corbel.

Slabs lay on beams. They’re connected between them and to beams through bolted junctions.

The external facade lays on slabs. Its modules, bolted together, are fixed to slabs through the use of metallic plates.

Finally, the external facade hook to the building structure thanks to the presence of an external metallic profile, running all along the external structural beams.

Bolted connection between shear walls.

Bolted connection between two slabs and slab and beam. The metallic box is firmly anchored to the concrete component thanks to the use of tensioned rebars.

Screwed connection of the external facade over the metallic profile.

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The structural system.

Peikko Sumo Wall Shoe and Peikko Hidden Corbel and DeltaBeam The system makes use of two different technologies developed by Peikko in order to ensure structural stability.

Peikko Sumo Wall Shoe technology (1) provides strong tensile connections between structural walls and it doesn’t require in situ-welding. Connections are able to transfer tensile forces immediately after elements are erected.

This element consists of wall shoe and anchor bolts. Wall shoes are cast into precast concrete walls, whereas anchor bolts are cast into foundations or other walls. On site, the walls are erected on adjusted shim plates in the correct position and fixed to the anchor bolts.

Peikko Hidden Corbel (2) is a vertical support for columns and it is combined to the technology of DeltaBeam, a metallic modular framework for beams. The Hidden Corbel consists of a steel corbel bolted to a fastening plate integrated into the column. The fastening plate is cast into the column together with the main reinforcement and the corbel plate is attached to the column only after the formwork is removed. In addition to vertical resistance, torsion resistance is also guaranteed.

Peikko Sumo Wall Shoe Technology. Anchor bars are connected through a nut to the anchor bolt below.

(1) Peikko Group (2014), Technical Manual. SUMO Wall Shoe for Bolted Wall Connections Peikko Hidden Corbel and connection to Delta Beam.

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(2) Peikko Group (2019), Technical Manual.PCs Corbel. Hidden Corbel for Supporting Beams

The structural system.

Application The project uses these technologies respectively for the vertical connections between walls and for the horizontal connections between beams and walls.

The main difference from their usual application regards especially the element of Hidden Corbel, here applied to walls rather than columns, and DeltaBeams. They normally need, in fact, to be casted on site, as they are used to cover long-span spaces. Nevertheless, the use of shorter beams could enable the prefabrication of these elements, in order to be assembled on site with huge savings in terms of time and energy needed.

K-plan

Plan and section 1:20 Connections between two shear walls with the SUMO wall shoe and horizontal connection between shear wall and beam through the use of Hidden Corbel and Delta Beam.

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The structural system.

Rules for the placement of segments To provide structural stability to the building block, shear walls need to respect a few rules concerning their placement.

Beyond these more technical advices, segments shall be always placed in view of flexibility and future potential spatial changes.

1.5 m 1.7 m

1. Beams shall support a maximum cantilever of 7.5 sqm, based on Peikko technology. This maximum lenght would also enable the transport of components on wheels.

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2. Structural shear walls on the side of the block shall be orthogonal to the direction of its inner skin to provide the connection between lateral beams and wall.

3. Structural shear walls shall be 1.5 m-long. The shall be 1.7 m-long.

walls running parallel to beams The orthogonal ones, instead,

4. Due to the overall interlocking method between components, two shear walls can’t meet when perpendicular.

5. Due to the overall interlocking method between components, walls perpendicular to the trend of beams can’t be more than coupled.

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The space plan and the service system.

Space catalogue.

Indoor space is designed depending on the placement of the structural segments, and therefore of plumbing. They’re made of wooden modular components. In this regard, timber distinguishes partitions from concrete structural elements in view of their respective service life. This is also a way for the user to read his/ her home and could result in a deeper knowledge of the building’s systems and thus in potential dynamics of selfmaintenance.

Even if made of modular components, spaces can still be different and the exceeding quantity of plumbing eventually permits their modification over time.

Generally, indoor spaces, comprising toilettes, have been designed in view of openness toward the exterior, using big openable windows enabling a direct connection to the surrounding environment. In this respect, the presence of the external facade permits a further light layer providing at the same time privacy and still visual contact from the interior to the exterior.

Double bedrooms

16.6 sqm Large double bedroom opening toward the space of threshold on its long side and presence of plumbing on the shorter.

12.9 sqm Medium double bedroom opening on two sides toward the space of threshold and presence of plumbing.

12.9 sqm Medium double bedroom opening on one side toward the space of threshold and presence of plumbing on its long one.

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Single bedrooms

12.7 sqm Rectangular single bedroom opening toward the space of threshold on its short side and presence of plumbings on both its longer ones.

Kitchens

11.7 sqm Rectangular kitchen opening toward the space of threshold on its short side.

Toilettes

6.7 sqm Large bathroom opening toward the space of threshold.

12.5 sqm

11.7 sqm

5 sqm

Squared single bedroom (or small double bedroom) opening on its long side toward the space of threshold and presence of plumbing.

Rectangular kitchen opening on two sides toward the space of threshold.

Medium bathroom opening toward the space of threshold.

12.5 sqm

11.6 sqm

4 sqm

Squared single bedroom opening on two sides toward the space of threshold and presence of plumbing.

Open kitchen opening on one sides toward the space of threshold.

Small bathroom illuminated by the space of threshold through frosted glass (for apartments that are less than 70 sqm)

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The facade system.

Liveable Skin catalogue.

The structural system as well as essential spaces of living are wrapped by the element of Double skin facade.

The two skins assume different roles.

The inner one protects the structure and the existenzminimum, the essential spaces.

The exterior one, instead, offers a better indoor climate while defining a space plus, that confers that degree of ambiguity and uncertainty that distinguish the act of surviving from living.

Depending on housing typologies and users’ needs and willing to share, this space in-between, a threshold between indoor and outdoor environment, private and public sphere, can assume different meanings, characterising the block.

Moreover, it provide a customisable showcase that enable individuality and recognition from the outside.

Depending on the characteristics of its components it can define entire segments of the city, making them catchy and attractive, that is something crucial to avoid the generation of peripheries and to renovate the existing ones.

The living facade could be shared between different users and shaped to accomodate at the same time spaces of passage and of staying.

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Living facade could belong to each building’s inhabitant. Its size and its being openable could enable diverse potential uses that could differ along the year depending on seasonality.

When linear, the living double skin could still enable diverse uses, as a simple corridor, perhaps green, connecting spaces or as an addition to each room.

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Our future homes

General goal

Building system

To provide a replicable, easy to assemble and disassemble modular prefab system that permits an high degree of spatial flexibility.

Prefab bolted concrete building structure based on the use of modular structural shear walls containing pipes

To reply to different needs over the operative life of the building.

To permit components and materials’ reusability.

To be functionally convertible.

To provide a qualitative space enhancing a stronger connection between inside ad outside environment.

Liveable Double Skin Facade

To avoid the usual correspondance between social housing, affordability and standardised existenzminimum.

To provide a space plus, in a time when home becomes also working place for the whole family.

To foster a new aesthetic for Design for Disassembly and avoid the generation of peripheries. Recycling in architecture doesn’t mean to “slummerise” the world

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To provide a modular but still customisable system that is capable to shape different types of inner spaces.

Space plan made of modular components

To foster the concept of selfmaintenance or at least the avoidance of intrusive maintenance events.

Services

Why

How

According to different studies, even structural concrete elements can be reused.

Shear walls need to be vertically connected in order to distribute shear forces.

For this purpose, the system uses the Peikko technology of Sumo Wall Shoe.

The structure counts just a few modular elements, resulting in a higher level of flexibility and in economic and energy savings.

As the structure integrates pipes for services, spaces can be adapted according to the needs of each user over time. Even if there are more pipes than needed, their cost shall be covered over time by savings in maintenance and adaptation.

Beams are connected to shear walls with the Peikko technology of Hidden Corbel. This is a system that provides a strong bolted male-female connection.

Slabs lay on beams. They’re further interconnected through the use of firslty mechanical connections developed in 2015 by Martin Ravnsvbaek and Hans Nicolai Sondergaard.

This type of structure provides continuity in plan, avoiding the presence of additional columns.

The two skins work indipendently, resulting in high degree of flexibility and into the possibility to manage them differently from a financial point of view.

In view of circularity, their modular components can be easily removed, updated, certified and substituted.

Especially the external facade, as first mediator between indoor and outdoor environment, could provide feedbacks to the producer in order for him to implement products. This means a better experience for the user too.

It provides a buffer area, an ambiguity between inside and outside environment connecting housing units to their natural and urban surroundings.

The inner skin is a partition wall facade.

It determines the boundary of each housing space and the overall perimeter of the essential part of the house.

It is made of a series of modular wooden components linked to slabs with metallic plates. In this regard, the choice on material depends on its life expectancy, shorter in respect to structure.

Modules are finally interconnected through visible bolted joints, easily accessible due to their side location.

The external skin is a building envelope and it runs all along the building. It is linked to the exterior side of slabs and beams through a metallic profile.

Depending on its volumetric variations, also the specific type of connection can vary.

As indipendent filter between the urbanity and the building structure, it can “mask” it in infinite ways, depending on the urban context and available products.

Different spaces can be designed just using a few amount of building components, specifically sized for this purpose.

Modular components lay on the surface of slabs on which they’re fixed with metallic plates.

They’re covered by modular cladding, whie the addition of wooden sticks eventually pemit to furnish them.

This possibility results in high savings in energy and economic terms.

Pipes are easily accessible and thus they can be easily maintained. ey’re locate in correspon ance o structural walls, on their external sides.

This decentralised system means that one of the pipes goes broken, the damage remains isolated, without compromising the liveability of the system.

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Home as a service: a new financial system

“We want to shape a better built environment; one that is better for its inhabitants while also being sustainable and affordable.”

-T. Carfrae, Deputy Chairman Arup-

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Success in terms of circularity can’t be reached just through the single architectural object.

It is without saying thus that this project needs to be integrated into an urban framework that supports policies of Circular Economy.

In this regard, the thesis fosters an innovative circular system of public procurement aimed at lowering the entry point to the housing market and saving resources and energy through strategies of regeneration and reuse. . The role of urban policy-makers Convening and consulting with industry stakeholders, incorporating Circular Economy criteria in public procurement tenders, and via asset management, city governments can incentivise circular economy practices in the built environment and reply at the same time to the increasing housing demand.

As a basic starting point, they shall incentivise the use of new construction techniques and smarter material choices by specifying these in public procurement tenders for construction projects, by encouraging resource-efficient construction and de-construction

practices, through fiscal measures and regulations on material management, and finally by developing capacity-building programmes for construction workers to fulfil the required skills for the phase of deconstruction.

The most important task of city governments by the way would be the creation, under their responsibility, of a Public Material Bank aimed to hold informations about available materials and components, stock them when not reused immediately and manage the relation with the private production sector.

In view of that, financing the research on buildings’ materials’ properties would be indicated to have reliable data concerning the available building stock of the city.

Moreover, public sector shall be also responsible to train qualified professionals managing the functioning of the bank and able to use technological tools, as BIM, required to grant circularity of processes and collaboration along the overall supply chain.

The creation of a public material bank would strenght collaboration between public and private sector, helping to solve problems of maintenance over time and securing, at the same time, economic benefits for both parties. (1)

(1) S. Witjes, R. Lozano (2016), Towards a more Circular Economy: Proposing a framework linking sustainable public procurement and sustainable business models, in Resources, Conservation and Recycling 112, 37–44, Elsevier, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j. resconrec.2016.04.015

In this regard, even today, projects of retrofitting or renovation are difficult to handle, involving a sensitive collaboration between a number of parties with, in many cases, conflicting financial incentives and commercial interests. In this regard, the current stakeholder culture has caused over time long and expensive legal battles emerging from miscommunication and misalignment of incentives.

The technological improvement of buildings makes this issue more difficult, as it requires specific types of knowledge that need to transfer barriers between the parties manufacturing these components, and those responsible for their maintenance and operation, with the risk to result in a suboptimal selection and operation of these systems. As a consequence, also the evaluation and monitoring of the ongoing benefits of a performance improvement project in terms of energy use, carbon footprint, resource consumption, or economic gains become challenging.

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In this scenario, a traditional Business Model based on the concept of ownership has already shown its limits, as it involves the responsibility of the single owner, who is invested by huge financial and legal risks due to the growing chance of technical failure of the building and miscalculation of its total costs.

The idea is thus to smooth the flow of revenues to reduce risk and push investors to focus on a diversified investment portfolio rather than on quick turnovers.

With Design for Disassembly and Adaptability in mind, based on the life expectancy of each building layer, the Business Model of Leasing could help to solve these-long term dynamics, paving the collaboration between producers and clients and promoting changeability of components. It would support in fact technical innovation; enhance high-quality products, as they’d be selected based on durability and performance rather than their initial cost; promote components’ reuse and reprocessing.

. The role of the users In this scenario, thus, the concept of housing ownership changes, shifting toward accessibility and enhancing a new financial public housing system.

First of all, given a fixed and permanent structure, the client entering the public housing market would be asked to choose how many square meters he wants to buy.

Secondly, he could have the possibility to decide how many services (bathroom and kitchen) to include into the apartment and where, according to the potentialities of flexibility offered by the structure.

Then, finally, he could shape the rest of the spaces, through the leasing of different types of space plan components, that he could choose as from a catalogue.

The client would thus pay the accessibility to each of the chosen components, depending on its performance and durability: it’s the same concept of paying light or electric bills, he pays just the service he uses.

In this way, the initial cost of the unit would be lower, as the overall price of the unit would be distributed over time.

Once the lease ceases, different scenarios could take place.

The built social housing unit could be sold as it is and be ready to be reused, (housing

components due to leasing strategies, shouldn’t be in need of additional maintenance), without any expenditure in economic and energy terms.

A passage of accessibility, that would avoid further expenditures as well, could imply a dynamic of swapping. Two users living in the same building could meet their mutual needs and decide to swipe their apartments. Surely the scale of the project would influence the success of this type of dynamic.

When the needs of the new user are different, instead, he could decide to change completely the spaces of his unit and shape them diversily, in the same available surface.

In case of lowering of housing demand, the flexible components of the unit could be dismantled and stored into the building materials’ bank, thus defining their current state and performance, reporting feedbacks in terms of operative service and eventually operating their consequent technological improvement.

In this way, the public procurement process of social housing could potentially close a

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€€ Family or budget change

CYCLE OF ADAPTATION + Housing unit

+

+

User’s decision

BUILDING LIFECYCLE

SUBSCRIPTION CYCLE Design structure

Units’ customisation

Assembling design

= €

Library of components

Living areas enter the market

An interconnected circular social housing system.

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regenerative loop, as in the best scenario these components, once certified, could be reused as they are either into new buildings or in retrofitting interventions, with a paradigm shift from reductionism to the Cradle to Cradle.

High-tech non-structural components, instead, could be periodically maintained and technologically improved, as a way to ensure high performances over the entire operative life of the building on one side and on the other to get periodical feedbacks of the product to further improve it. In this regard, currently, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, households on average spend around 21% of their gross adjusted disposable income on keeping a roof over their heads, (for periodical maintenance) (2).

. Positive implications From the demand point of view, this new financial system could make Social Housing more affordable, or better, more tailor-made, in economic and functional terms.

Thanks to the adoption of building components’ leasing, the initial investment required for the construction of high performance building units could highly decrease and the user could have the possibility to split the cost of services provided by the housing unit over time, depending on his/her income.

Moreover, enlarging the number of possible renters or buyers would increase urban density and potentially activate social contacts that could enhance collaboration and thus innovation.

In this regard, dynamics of spatial sharing could also contribute to implement the affordability of the housing units, blurring the concept of individual ownership from a marketable point of view.

Functionally speaking, the house would always be potentially updated to the users’ needs, due to its spatial and components’ flexibility, while the presence of a permanent figure, as the Municipality, could help users’ to familiarise with these technologies, to use them in the correct way, enhancing sustainable living habits.

For the supply side, this new model could open several new opportunities, especially

regarding a new relation of integration and collaboration between the public and the private sector through the role of the public one into the Material Bank organisation.

An agreement between the two sectors could potentially avoid the need for intrusive and expensive episodes of maintenance due to natural obsolescence of buildings’ components, as they would be periodically updated.

The creation of a Material Bank would also push the Municipality to have a deep knowledge of its spatial and material resources, hopefully resulting in their better management.

This would also result in avoiding situations of building vacancy while replying to the existing housing demand in an exact way. In this regard, just in United Kingdom, datas show that today 49% owner-occupied homes are ‘under-occupied’ (at least two bedrooms more than stated need) (3).

The question city governments need to answer thus is the feasibility of this big new financial model. Surely, it would demand energy and resources for the training of new working figures, for the development of specific reliable technological tools and for an overall process of burocracy digitalisation. Moreover, it would probably require some legal adjustment to make

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(2) OECD, Better Life Index. Housing, http://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/topics/ housing/ (3) Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (2019), English Housing Survey. Headline Report, 201819, National Statistics, https://assets. publishing.service.gov.uk/government/ uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/ file/860076/2018-19_EHS_Headline_ Report.pdf

the stipulation of leasing contracts, especially when related to social housing, easier.

Notwithstanding, today, that we’re facing a period of crisis from different sides and the pandemic puts a further strain, is possibly the time to begin this ecological and economic transition.

Visions always need time to get accomplished: Rome wasn’t built in a day.

Tailor-made social housing

Fostering urban density and thus social contacts and potential innovation

House adaptation to the users’ needs

Private

Public

Contact between the public and the private sector

The positive implications of the financial model fostered by Home as a Service

Knowledge about the city resources from the Municipality

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Hig hte ch

co

Housing in leasing

s nt e n po m

rs roduce eir p h t to ack b me co

- tech Low

Home

+ -

€ Periodical payment

Housing unsubscription

he

s again nter it e un

the marke t a s it is

ket e mar s th ter en ts ni Swapping d y n am ics 134

After be i n g ad ap t e d, u

T

Housing subscription

components retu

ucers

return to

the ba nk

City government

Private production sector

Materials and components bank

Products’ upgrade

Positive effects: . Lowering of the entry point to the public housing market . Increasing of urban density due to the higher amount of possible renters . Housing adaptability and flexibility . Avoidance of processes of building obsolescence . Avoidance of housing vacancies . Housing adaptation in view of current housing demand . Knowledge of the state of art of the built environment for each city

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The DNA of Home as a Service system

Public Material Bank

. Circularity of resources in terms of components and materials with economic savings; . Stronger connection between private and public sector.

The model envisions a new financial system for public housing procurement proccess based on the business model of leasing. The housing unit is conceived as a customisable area filled with components providing a certain service. The user pays what he “access”, with a consequent lower to the entry point to the housing market.

Once components have been used, the user can return them.

Business model of Sharing Accessibility

Business model of Leasing

New circular financial model

Circularity of resources

Affordability

Public procurement process

. Constant upgrade and certification of components . Knowledge about the amount of resources of each city . Fast reply to the housing demand of the city . Avoidance of vacant spaces Our future sustainable cities

. Compactness

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. Context-based

. Aware of its resources

Home as a servic

ome as a service

. Adaptation to whatever type of urban context; . A new aesthetic for Design for disassembly . Qualitative housing . Better indoor comfort . Extention of the so called existenzminimum. Especially today when homes also become workspaces, a space “plus” shall be a right

Adaptable and flexible

Independent Building Systems

New circular building model Design for Disassemble

Different systems’ life expectancy

The project envisions a new construction system based on the indipendency of each of the 6 systems the building is made of in order to provide flexibility, adaptability and still durability when needed, without compromising the principles of Design for Disassembly.

Liveable Double Skin Facade

Prefab Bolted Concrete Structure

Replicability

Modularity

. Affordable and fast construction system . Flexible space plan

Prefabbrication

Components

Materials

. Space adaptability over the entire operative life of the building . Durability in view of the system’s life expectancy . Reusability due to its material and bolted connections

. Affordable and inclusive

. Policentric

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Social housing: design applications

“Architecture (is) a theatre stage setting where the leading actors are the people, and to dramatically direct the dialogue between these people and space is the technique of designing.”

- K. Kurokawa -

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This building system can be adapted to several housing typologies. In this chapter, I’ll show three of its possible applications, through the design of a tower, of a courtyard and of a row housing typology. The three housing complexes represent three different ways of living and conceiving Social Housing and they’re addressed to diverse users as well, demonstrating how this construction method could be used in the most diverse situations and geographies.

The theme of Social Housing, starting from the Nordic examples of the ‘70s, from Vandkunsten, for instance, with their project of Jystrup Savværk (1) or Hertzberger with his Student Housing Weesperstraat (p. 96), has been strongly developed over time and found different types of application depending on how was conceived the significance of the term Social.

In Italy especially, missing a strong tradition of Social Housing, that rather corresponds to an imaginery of cheap living, Social Housing can assume today new characteristics, looking at the same time to topics as sustainability and inclusiveness. The topic is really current, if we think that housing deprivation in Italy regards around the 7% of population (2).

In this regard, some experiences today are paving the way showing the application of new concepts of Social Housing. It’s the case, for instance, of the Milanese projects of Cenni di Cambiamento or Figino Borgo Sostenibile, both characterised by the presence of functional and social mix and by the figure of the so-called Gestore Sociale, aimed at checking the on-going dynamics inside the complex and the operative life of the buildings (3).

Anyway, the typologies I’m going to present are deliberately not related to a context. Their context could potentially be the entire globe, as the same structural system can be further adapted in view of each geography it belongs to.

Nevertheless, they present different ways of living and conceiving Social Housing and this is a peculiarity that could actually be context-based.

In this regard, according to the willingness to share that each typology permits potentially, the space of Liveable Double Skin assumes different meanings.

The tower typologies shows a more traditional way of living, that doesn’t envisage shared spaces but the ones eventually hosting the services for residents.

The courtyard typology, instead, displayes a more fluid way of living, where the distinction between public and private sphere is more subtle and uncertain.

Here the Liveable Double Skin becomes the main junction between different housing units.

(1) https://vandkunsten.com/en/projects/ co-living-jystrup (2) A. Pattini (2012), Social Housing in the European Union, https://www. researchgate.net/publication/308964157 (3) Fondazione Cariplo with Fondazione Housing Sociale, Polaris and Comune di Milano (2014), Housing sociale per persone fragili nell’ambito del progetto abitativo sperimentale Borgo Sostenibile; http://www.cennidicambiamento.it

Finally, in the last one, the Housing in row, Social Housing is properly conceived as a synonim of living together and the Liveable Double Skin assumes the connotations of a common living room, as a junction between the housing spaces.

The design of each housing unit was also inspired by the types of users it could eventually host.

Their potential needs were the starting point to conceive an open framework to set the design.

In any case, flexibility was the main driver for the design of each unit, to be eventually suitable for further spatial increment.

Next page: diagram of the users

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User’s typologies

Need

Single < 30

Possibility to allocate an extra bedroom / office / nursery

Single > 30

Possibility to get in touch with other people living in the same complex. Eventually, high accessibility to the shared Liveable Double Skin Facade.

Divorced parent

Artisan

Division between the office and the house. Large space of Liveable Double Skin Facade to be used as additional space and showcase

Smart workers’ family Presence of spatious gathering area as well as of big rooms, eventually suitable for smart working Young couple

Old couple

Compact apartment with additional functions located in the collective space of the building or within the territory of their urban block

Family Spacious apartment with a separate bedrooms Extended family (4)

(4) Family that can periodically grow due to the arrival of a second family nucleus normally living somewhere else. Common situation when part of the family lives abroad and comes to visit relatives.

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Units <36 sqm

36-45 sqm

46-55 sqm

Aims of design

To provide openness toward the Liveable Double Skin Facade that shall be conceived as an integrated part of the housing unit.

To leave space in the Liveable Double Skin Facade to eventually house an extra room.

56-65 sqm

66-80 smq

>80 smq

To provide visual and spatial continuity between the formal living room and the Liveable Double Skin Facade, eventually stressing the concept of private and public depending on the willingness to share of each user.

To design the Double Skin to be suitable in size to be a workspace, where the atmosphere of working in openair is combined to the comfort of working indoor.

To address the Liveable Double Skin as the sum of different spatial situations suggesting diverse social behaviours.

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The three typologies

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The Tower The tower typology presents a central core of accessibility. Structural segments containing pipes are placed all around in view of flexibility while following the structural rules they need to respect.

In this regard, the tower is possibly the most complicated between the three typologies, structurally speaking.

The placement of structural segments needs to be careful to find the balance between flexibility and number of segments affecting the space design, especially as in this case they’re neither symmetrical or parallel.

In the following pages, I’ll present three possible housing variations using the same structural scheme.

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The tower presents a central core of accessibility.

Structural segments are placed all around it in view of flexibility and space adaptability. Services could be potentially placed along all of them.

Depending on the housing divisions and on the presence of structural segments, rooms and services are set.

Their partitions, when facing the Liveable Double Skin Facade, correspond to the inner layer of the Double Skin.

The units are finally wrapped by the Liveable Double Skin, that here becomes an additional private living space of the house that bridges between indoor and outdoor environment.

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19.6 m

The structure.

The Tower. Scale 1:200

19.6 m Structural diagram. The trend of beams and the placement of the segments.

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Plumbing diagram. Pipes run along the structural walls, providing spatial flexibility.

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First variation.

The Tower

To divide.

The first variation foresees four different housing units.

To distinguish.

Units have different sizes and thus will host users with diverse needs: young or old couples, family or extended families or even single over 30 and divorced parents, in need of additional space to eventually host guests.

To reverse.

Each housing unit can be spatially read in reverse, looking at the space of Liveable double skin. Each apartment has access to the space of Liveable Facade, proportionally to its area.

28 sqm 42.5 sqm 0

3m

12 m

50 sqm 61.7 sqm

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Second variation.

The Tower

To divide.

The second variation foresees three different housing units.

To distinguish.

The three units are here really different. The big one could be moslty suitable for an extended family of large family nucleus. The small one for young couples that would eventually need an additional room; the third one for an average family, even eventually in smart-working.

To reverse.

Still, each apartment has access to the space of Liveable Facade, proportionally to its area.

46.5 sqm 0

3m

12 m

57.5 sqm 83 sqm

150

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Third variation.

The Tower

To divide.

The third variation foresees four different housing units.

To distinguish.

Each unit replies to different needs but all of them can be eventually enlarged due to the space of Liveable Double Skin Facade

To reverse.

Still, each apartment has access to the space of Liveable Facade, proportionally to its area.

36.5 sqm 38.4 sqm 0

3m

12 m

52 sqm 56.5 sqm

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153

154

155

156

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The Courtyard The courtyard typology here presented shows a different way of conceiving what living in Social Housing means.

Differently from the Tower typology, it foresees part of the Liveable Double Skin to be shared between users.

Units open on this public square, that becomes the main junction between them. For this reason, its perimeter is not completely linear. It shapes depending on spatial hierarchies aimed at ensuring the virtuous combination between passages and informal potential places to stay.

The Liveable Double Skin has a private character instead when facing the exterior perimeter, as in this case it directly belongs to each apartment.

As their social character is diverse, I decided to treat the outer layer of the two skins differently also in architectural terms.

Inside the courtyard, the outer layer is a green wall: a solution that confers space a certain kind of atmosphere, making the courtyard recongnisable and potentially improving the climate with the creation of a chimney effect.

On the outside, instead, the external skin would be formed by openable glazed panels and by translucent ones, as in the aesthetic of the tower.

In the following pages, I’ll show two variations given by the same structure.

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The accessibility to each floor of the courtyard happens through a core of accessibility located on one of its long sides.

Structural segments are in this case placed symmetrically. This turned out to be the simplest and most efficient solution to ensure flexibility and stability at the same time with the lowest number of structural components.

Depending on the housing divisions and on the presence of structural segments, rooms and services are set.

Their partitions, when facing both the Liveable Double Skins Facade, inside the courtyard and on the external perimeter, correspond to the inner layer of the Double Skin.

The units are finally wrapped by the external layer of the Liveable Double Skin: inside the courtyard it is a green wall, on the outside perimeter it is formed by glazed and translucent panels, corresponding to their different social characteristics.

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18.1 m

The structure.

The Courtyard. Scale 1:200

27 m Structural diagram. The trend of beams and the placement of the segments.

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Plumbing diagram. Pipes run along the structural walls, providing spatial flexibility.

161

First variation.

The Courtyard

To divide.

The first variation foresees four different housing units.

To distinguish.

Units are quite different and can host different users. From small families, to young couples with the possibility to partially use the space of Liveable Double Skin for the eventual addition of a room, to students sharing an apartment, large or extended families.

To reverse.

Each unit is accessible from the courtyard and present on the exterior perimeter a private space of Liveable Facade, proportionally to its area.

34 sqm 36 sqm 0

3m

12 m

50 sqm 88 sqm

162

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Second variation.

The Courtyard

To divide.

The second variation foresees four housing units as well.

To distinguish.

In this case, two large units, more suitable for large or extended families, are combined to two smaller ones that could be easily addressed to young couples or singles.

To reverse.

Still, each unit is accessible from the courtyard and present on the exterior perimeter a private space of Liveable Facade, proportionally to its area.

36.4 sqm 0

3m

12 m

65.7 sqm 73.8 sqm

164

165

166

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The Student House in row The last typology regards the proposal of a student house in row. Even if this type of typology is not so common in Italy, were urban settlements are mostly based on compactness, due to geographical circumstances, in Nordic countries, instead, and especially in Denmark, that is a complete flat land, this typology is quite widespread. In this regard, White Arkitekter has recently won a competition for a housing settlement of 115 units exactly developing this architectural typology (5).

As in the courtyard typology, also in this case the Liveable Double Skin Facade assumes two different functions.

On one side, it provides the accessibility to each unit.

On the other, it works as a common living room connecting the housing space and becomes the main node and junction of the house.

As before, these spaces have been treated differently from an architectural point of view as well.

Structurally speaking, this typology is characterised by the iteration of the structural segments, following the same rhythm of the beams.

For this reason, the variation proposals are more similar between them than the ones previously displayed for the other typologies.

The space of the Liveable Double Skin Facade becomes here even more important than the interior spaces, fostering the concept of Living in Community.

Two variations are following.

(5) P. Lynch (2016), White Arkitekter Blurs the Line Between Built and Natural in Housing Project Design, in archdaily. com, 6 of July, https://www.archdaily. com/790889/white-arkitekter-blurs-theline-between-built-and-natural-in-housingproject-design?ad_medium=gallery

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The accessibility to each floor happens through a core of accessibility located on one of its short sides.

Structural segments are iterated along the row, depending on the rhythm of beams.

Depending on the housing divisions and on the presence of structural segments, rooms and services are set.

Their partitions, on both the long sides of the complex, when facing both the Liveable Double Skins Facade, correspond to the inner layer of the Double Skin.

The units are finally wrapped by the external layer of the Liveable Double Skin: the passage of accessibility is characterised by openness, while on the side of the common living room translucent and glazed panels ensure privacy.

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31.8 m

The structure.

The Student House in row. Scale 1:200

9.7 m Structural diagram. The trend of beams and the placement of the segments.

170

Plumbing diagram. Pipes run along the structural walls, providing spatial flexibility.

171

First variation.

The Student House in row

To divide.

The first variation foresees two housing units.

To distinguish.

The two units differ in terms of number of rooms, and therefore of students, that they respectively host.

To reverse.

Both of them are characterised by the junction space of Liveable Double Skin Facade, that directly connects each bedroom and services.

0

3m

12 m

55.4 sqm 76.4 sqm

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Second variation.

The Student House in row

To divide.

The second variation foresees two housing units as well.

To distinguish.

The two units are similar to the previous ones, as in terms of square meters they’re the same due to the rhythm of the structural segments, but the placement of services and rooms change.

To reverse.

Both of them are characterised by the junction space of Liveable Double Skin Facade, that directly connects each bedroom and services.

0

3m

12 m

55.4 sqm 76.4 sqm

174

175

176

177

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FINAL CONSIDERATIONS

The opposite of knowledge is not the ignorance, its opposite is the certainty.

Il contrario della conoscenza non è l’ignoranza, il contrario della conoscenza è la certezza. Tahar Ben Jelloun

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It’s time now to draw some conclusion in respect to what treated.

This last part of the thesis does not have the aim to be the end the work, rather the bridge to a new beginning.

This work displayed some feasible potentialities, that would need further development in view of their application in real life though. Nevertheless, in this inter-disciplinary field that connects Circular Economy to Architecture where research is still on-going, every contribution could be an important stepping stone for further research and I hope I’ve opened new questions, rather than providing certain answers. . The contextual framework This thesis enters an historical framework where the topic of Circular Economy is gaining particular momentum due to a series of events happened in the recent past both at a global and national level.

Sustainability, as previously displayed, had surely a role in shaping policies since the ‘90s, but the outbreak of the pandemic, coinciding with the launch of the European Green Deal, gave the boost in enhancing Circularity, at least in the public debate in Italy.

In the architectural field the launch over last January of the so-called New European Bauhaus gave a strong print regarding the new directions the discipline shall take in shaping our future cities and called all architects and creative minds to foster through design exactly the concepts of sustainability, aesthetics and inclusiveness: The New European Bauhaus is a project of hope to explore how we live better together after the pandemic. It is about matching sustainability with style, to bring the European Green Deal closer to people’s minds and homes. We need all creative minds: designers, artists, scientists, architects and citizens, to make the New European Bauhaus a success. (1).

Even inside national boundaries, for the first time we assist to the creation of a new ministry in charge of the Ecological Transition (2), while the new Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi mentions the need for the country to develop a new approach to positively conciliate environmentalism and national progress (3).

Something feasible, if we think to the fact that Italy is the best European country in terms of circularity, given a set of indicators defined by the Circular Economic Network (4) Even at an urban scale, in the city of Milan, the topic of circularity became quite a thing over 2019 in view of the fact that the city will have a central role in hosting next Winter Olympic Games of 2026, (whose core is nothing less than Sustainability and Legacy), and of the publication of the new plan for Milan 2030, envisioning an inclusive, policentric and sustainable city, fostering new connections, new poles of attraction, new social housing projects, the creation of natural ecosystems inside the consolidated city and the prevention of the natural resource of Parco Agricolo Sud (5). In this regard, the plan is part of the vision of the C40 program, to which Milan belongs to together with other 80 cities in the world, aimed to find strategies to deal with climate change. Moreover, in this concern, since 2014 Milan has been involved into the project 100 Resilient Cities, fostered by Rockfeller Foundation, witnessing once again the interest of the Municipality in developing green policies.

Moreover, the theme of the building skin as a strategic element to rethink the future of new and existing buildings is progressively becoming quite crucial in the architectural debate.

In this regard, the experience of Lacaton & Vassal who firstly conceived with this wider

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(1) 2021, 18 of January, statement of the European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen at the launch of the design phase of the New European Bauhaus (2) This ministry, in addition to the existing Environmental one, exists also in a few other European countries. In Denmark this figure is called Minister for Climate, Energy and Utilities and it was firslty launched on 28th of June 2015. In France it is called Minister of Ecological Transition as well and it was launched on May 23rd 2019 (3) Protecting the future of the environment and reconciling it with progress and social well-being requires a new approach, where the different faces of a multifaceted challenge include digitization, agriculture, health, energy, aerospace, cloud computing, schools and education, territorial protection, biodiversity, global warming and the greenhouse effect, and are at the center of the ecosystem in which all human actions will develop.

17th of February 2021, Mario Draghi, programmatic speech in the Senate of the Republic (4) Circular Economy Network, ENEA (edited by) with the patronage of Minister of Ecological Transition (2021), 3° Rapporto sull’economia circolare in Italia.

Sintesi del rapporto, Fondazione per lo Sviluppo Sostenibile, Roma, https:// circulareconomynetwork.it/wp-content/ uploads/2021/03/Sintesi_Terzo-Rapportoeconomia-circolare.pdf (5) Comune di Milano in collaboration with Centro Studi PIM and AMAT (2019), Piano di Governo del Territorio. Documento di Piano.Milano 2030. Visione, Costruzione, Strategie, Spazi. Relazione Generale

significance has been finally prised just a few days ago with the prestigious Pritzker prize (6).

The thesis intercepted these signals to deliver a new proposal, that, as above mentioned, does not have the aim to be totally finalised and exact. It marks instead a new path that could be further developed from different perspectives, through inter-disciplinary and multiscale approaches.

. What this project demonstrates In this regard, this alternative housing system has the great potentiality to achieve principles of circularity both at an urban and architectural scale.

In fact, its application into an urban context would largely contribute to the creation of a more sustainable and healthy city, as it would combine the need for compactness and affordable housing together with liveability, inclusiveness, policentricity and vicinity thorugh the construction of liveable and airy homes context-related in terms of both aesthetics and building materials.

A replicable modular system This building and financial housing system demonstrates the possibility to build diverse circular and demountable homes using existing technologies and just a few structural modular pieces.

I decided to display very different housing typologies exactly to stress about the potential of this system of replying to different types of housing demands and needs.

The tower shows a typology that could cover the so-called gray area, meaning those people who fall into the so-called housing gap.

The courtyard typology instead enhance a type of Social Housing where sociality has a real meaning in terms of sharing.

The housing in row shows one of the possible applications of the system in view of the creation of a student house based on the iteration of the same module.

A new aesthetic for Design for Disassembly Thanks to the strategic use of the element of Double Skin Facade, this system envisions a new aesthetic for Design for Disassembly.

(6) https://www.pritzkerprize.com/ laureates/anne-lacaton-and-jean-philippevassal

Especially in developing countries, where the topic of building reuse is immediately associated to slums settlements and where therefore the individual status is associated to the ownership of brand new goods, this topic becomes extremely crucial. It’s a matter of fact that beauty and luxury are currently main market drivers, rather than environmentalism or ethic matters in general. Thus, in order to become the normality, Design for Disassembly needs a new aesthetic, that, starting from modular and standardised components, can be further customised depending on the building context and on the will of city governments. Looking for affordable and flexible homes doesn’t necessarely mean to build something unfinished. It shall mean, instead, building something polished but still potentially increasing. This has been one of the main drivers of the overall design process and one of the reasons why the Double Skin Facade assumed a fundamental and strategic role.

In this regard, I decided to maintain the external facade quite neutral in all the building typologies, as the base of a series of other possible configurations it could eventually assume, both in material and volumetric terms.

Its independence from the rest of the building organism gives it freedom that translates into the possibility for it to shape differently according to each urban context and thus to provide attractiveness to entire segments of the city, avoiding in doing so the generation of peripheries.

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The new concept of Building in Leasing

Design for Disassembly is usually associated in literature to temporality. A concept that crash with our common perception of home.

In the meanwhile, the Business Model of Leasing is demonstrating its possible wide applications and is starting to enter also the housing sector, giving the possibility to lease some of the building components.

The application of this leasing on the housing sector thus offers the possibility to rethink Design for Disassembly in view of permanent living, avoiding its strained association to temporality.

Inter-disciplinary researches on this topic are still ongoing, as this new kind of inhabiting, based on accessibility rather than ownership, would imply, for what concerns the private sector at least, the shift of existing consolidated economic dynamics, as the current security and stability of an investment in real estate. Nevertheless, the public sector could enable the application of this business model concerning the overall housing procurement process, as it wouldn’t imply a loss of profit from any of the involved stakeholders. Over the long period, actually, this type of system would enable more gainings and have positive economic effects from both the suppliers and users’ points of view.

Anyway, it’s clear that this type of financial system needs, to work properly, a strong digitalised burocratic apparatus, able to constantly manage all the steps of leasing and the circularity of building resources, monitoring their availability over time. Moreover, it would require a process of education for people meant to work there, in order to be ready fot the tasks they would be asked to accomplish, as the use of digital tools as BIM or the management of leasing contracts.

. What’s next?

Further researches about this project could therefore regard either the architectural, technological or the urban scale.

The concept of Liveable Double Skin Facade, as a technological tool of sociality and of sustainability could be surely deepened.

Research could especially focus on its exterior layer, in the way it could provide high-tech performances, without compromising with the recyclability or reuse of its components.

What shall be thus the correct balance between high performances over time and final reuse?

Currently literature about circular facades is quite vague and almost non-existing. The topic though raises great interest and ask for more investigation, especially when thinking about all the advantages one could gain from the use of adaptive facade.

Materials could be another topic to research more.

As above mentioned, materials used shall be context base. Nevertheless, further investiogations concerning a comparison between the use of different materials on the element of Double Skin Facade, could provide interesting datas about their performance over time, in terms of both indoor and outdoor environment. Once provided, even material choices, still contextrelated, would be easier to handle.

Another interesting focus of research could concern circular urban dynamics and time needed to convert linear processes to be circular.

In view of the creation of a Material Bank, there would be the need to have a better understanding of the organisational improvements this new financial system would imply in different contexts. In this regard, from my Danish experience, I can firmly state how the passage

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toward digitalisation of the overall public system would largely facilitate any kind of burocratic dynamic. Probably the creation of a Material Bank would firstly require the establishment of a strong digitalised burocratic apparatus too. Nevertheless, the lack of previous experiences makes the topic particularly challenging but still open to new proposals and ideas.

On this, researches are still on going and the above mentioned city of Reburg, belonging to the European project BAMB, offers a good starting point to look at.

To conclude, what is actually really interesting about circular economy in architecture is that it is still an entire field of experimentation, as we have not assisted yet to the completion of an entire building cycle.

Nevertheless, it’s exactly that uncertanty that offers that necessary hope and naive freedom to imagine alternative solutions in view of contributing one day perhaps to shape a better future.

Odense, March 2021

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THANK YOU, TAK!

This thesis surely wouldn’t be the same without all the valuable people I had the opportunity to meet over this past year.

First of all, many thanks to Professor Alessandra Zanelli, who has always been available to listen to my doubts and worries, bringing every time not just reliable solutions and a great experience but also lightness and hope.

Many thanks also to Prof. Nebojsa Jakica for his important beneficial contribution to this project, made of valuable suggestions and advices, and for giving me many opportunities and possibilities that are raising my academic awareness daily, helping me to find my way.

Many thanks to Prof. Hugo Mulder, who gave me so many interesting inputs and helped me shaping the very first draft of the project as well, actively involving me in his classes and increasing my knowledge on the topic of circularity.

Finally, a very special thanks to the Create Group and to the students of the first year of the faculty of Civil and Architectural Engineering at Southern Denmark University for showing me new perspectives and what innovation in architecture and in industry can signify today.

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