Design research week

|Changes in lifestyle affecting the typology of housing in Australia.

Solid waste in Australia Building waste-management 8

|The need for waste minimisation of building materials.

7 Leyla Acaroglu, Circular Design Handbook: A toolkit for the circular economy (New York, United States: Disrupt Design LLC, 2018), 57. 8 Blue Environment and Randell Environmental Consulting, Waste generation and resource recovery in Australia (Docklands, Blue Environment Pty Ltd, 2013), 10, accessed May 06, 2021, https://www.environment.gov.au/protection/waste/ publications/national-waste-reports/2013/data-workbooks.

Project Objectives

In the past decade, lifestyles in Australia have significantly changed, one being increasing awareness to our environment. It is crucial to train designers to design for a circular economy as design is a crucial stage in a development and production of a product.

In the context of separate houses, the process of thinking circularly involves a longer design process, as compared to a linear design. This would involve careful consideration of materials, how structural components are contructed and how from the process of production, to transportation, to construction, would affect the environment.7

With ‘Building a Circular Future’, we want to challenge and rethink the way we use and reuse resources in the building industry and ultimately eliminate the concept of waste. -3XN Architects

The reseach aims to demonstrate how circular design of separate houses can achieve affordability while improving social sustainabilty.

Two main strategies that will be delivered in the final design will be through cirular materials and the Design for Disassembly(DfD).

|Circular House used as buidling blocks for single-detached house. Image source: Casper Ravn, student at KADK

|Circular House accomodating to different landscape topographies. Image source: Sarah S. Glatz, student at KADK

Project Framework

For the past 15 years, the average building floor area in Australia ranges between 229m² and 245m².9

Evaluation of a houshold’s needs and the value user’s place in respective spaces in their homes will be done in order to determine which architectural element could be altered to reduce and subsequently elimanate waste in production or construction. The average area for separatehousing provided above will set the benchmark for the proposal.

Design research and scheme will be in three stages: 1. DfD construction systems 1. Potential circular materials 2. Typology study and form exploration

For the purposes of the design research phase, 3 sites within Western Australia will be selected to demonstrate the adaptibility and flexibility of a circular designed house to a range of land types or sizes.

Midland

Location

Perth, Western Australia

Mediterranean climate Summer: December-February, average 31 °C Winter: June-August, ave. temp 12 °C

Rainfall: Average annually 775.0mm Wind: Average 9.5 km/h

Precedent #1

West Leederville Ellenbrook

Precedent #1

Circle House Demonstrator by 3xn Architects Copenhagen, Denmark 10

• Curated of exhibition of circular materials, products and solutions. • All components (structures & furnitures) are built upon the principle of C2C and DfD • Superstructure erected quickly onsite- walls took 1 hour • concrete foundations designed specifically for demountation and reuse for other projects

Precedent #2

Strawbale dingle-detached dwelling, Scaborough WA, by Christian and Deepti Wetjen11

• Strawbale exterior walls - excellent thermal & accoustic insulation - by-product from agriculture • Flexible floor plates accomodates to changing needs of household

11Deepti Wetjen and Chritian Wetjen, “Bio Based Materials-UWA-Week 3-Straw Bale (Part 1)” (lecture, University of Western Australia, Crawley, WA, August 12, 2020). |(Left) Interior image (Bottom) Exterior image

Image source: Bertram Radelow

Precedent #3

ICEhouse by William McDonough + Partners, Switzerland (2011)12

• designed to demonstrate the positive design framework described in ‘Cradle to Cradle©:

Remaking the Way We Make Things’, • aluminum for the structural frame, aerogel as insulation and polymers for cladding & furniture

• Designed for disassembly- designed to be used by people in need around the world

• structural system consists of two simple elements; 1. three-dimensional structural frame integrating the floor, walls and roof. 2. facade of polymer filled with aerogel as insulation

12Building a Circular Future,” GXN innovation, accessed 05 March, 2021, https://gxn.3xn.com/project/building-circular-future