The Future Envelope 15: Circularity Now!
Conference on Building Envelopes
Tuesday 28. May 2024 | TU Delft, Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment
Event overview:
FE15 will focus on the status quo of research related to circular building products but also on ways of accelerating and scaling up the transition.
Building products are the basic components of the built environment and thus central to the circular transition. In recent years, there is considerable research in materials, modes of design and manufacturing as well as new implementation protocols; however, circular practices fall short from becoming mainstream whilst circular implementation is further compromised by phenomena of greenwashing.
# What should be the industry’s circular
targets for the upcoming years?
# And how are we going to achieve them?
Info FutureEnvelope-BK@TUDelft.nl
Location TU Delft, Aula Congress Centre,
Mekelweg 56, 2628 CC Delft
Preliminary Programme
08.30 - 09.30 Registration
09.30 - 10.00 Introduction
10.00 - 12.00 Session 1: Circularity in Design and Construction
Olga Ioannou, TU Delft, NL
Peter van Assche, Pretty Plastic, Bureau SLA, NL
Jan Jongert, Superuse, TU Delft, NL
Alex de Rijke, dRMM, TU Delft, NL
13.30 - 15.00 Session 2: Material and Manufacturing
Linda Hildebrand, Concular, RWTH Aachen, DE
Fanny Thibault, Bellastock, FR
Anne Beim, CINARK, DN
15.30 - 17.00 Session 3: Circular Processes and Implementation
Annika Holmbom, Turku University of Applied Sciences, FI
Ed Forwood, Forwood Facades, UK
Waldo Galle, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, VITO Nexus, BE
Ruben van Vooren, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Bureau Bouwtechniek, BE
17.00 - 17.30 Closing
Future Envelope is organised by the Architectural Façade & Products Research Group, TU Delft in cooperation with the European Façade Network
Registration
Register here.
Registration fee:
- Standard ticket - 260 EUR
- TU Delft employee - 100 EUR
- Student* - 30 EUR
*Students are required to send their proof of student status to futureenvelope-bk@tudelft.nl.
Parking
TU Delft, Aula Congress Centre,
Mekelweg 56, 2628 CC Delft
Information regarding parking can be found here.
Poster
Download the poster here.
Meet our speakers!
''Consuming products as a service is not enough! Decreasing consumption itself needs to be considered, and here we need systematic thinking, data, and cooperation.''
Annika Holmbom is a Leader of the Circular Business Models research group at Turku University of Applied Sciences. She has a background in Chemical Engineering and PhD in Business Administration and Economics. With her team of 10 experts, she teaches Bachelor and Master students and does Research, Development and Innovation (RDI) with a project portfolio of half a million Euros external funding. The main RDI topics for the research group is promoting circular economy for companies within many fields like textiles and industrial symbioses. Her key passions in circular economy are data, cooperation, and consuming behavior.
''The transition towards a generative society is not technical operation, but a cultural revolution.''
Peter van Assche is professor Architecture and Circular Thinking at the Academy of Architecture Amsterdam, and supervisor for the Utrecht station area. He received a Master of Information Technology (cum laude) from the Technical University Eindhoven and obtained his architecture degree from the Rotterdam Academy of Architecture. Peter is co-founder of Pretty Plastic, a company that successfully produces building products from plastic waste. He was visiting professor in Erfurt (2019), at Cornell University (2020, 2022), and at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (2022, 2023). Peter van Assche was nominated Architect of the Year in 2023.
''Circularity is one of the necessary steps in the transition towards a regenerative future - let's make it a collective journey.''
Jan Jongert (Amsterdam 1971) is architect and co-founder of Superuse Studios. With his collective he designs and realizes concrete projects that stimulate local exchange and production. This is an alternative to transporting raw materials, products and parts around the world, where a lot of value is unnecessarily lost. With the Recyclicity Foundation, Jongert works on tactics and tools to enable the transition to architecture for a responsible society. Jan Jongert was curator of the Dutch Contribution to the 18th architecture Biennial in Venice in 2023 and currently visiting professor for circularity in the built environment at the Faculty of Architecture at TU Delft.
''Circularity is a complex and abstract concept that becomes hands-on when understanding the realms resource, information and value while the resource dimension is environmentally the most significant one.''
Linda Hildebrand is a professor at RWTH Aachen University, where she is heading the Institute for Reuse in Architecture since 2014. She is an architect specializing in environmental design and co-founder of Concular, a platform that provides services to support reuse in the construction industry.
''Moving from the urban mine to the urban vault, how improvements to digital processes, project sustainability requirements and building safety/assurance will all help close the Circularity Gap.''
Ed Forwood MICE, MIStructE, MSFE is a Structural and Façade Engineer and ex-Director with Arup. Ed is a passionate advocate for digital change and while at Arup lead the development of their suite of Unity based tools, Arup Street, Arup Solar and Arup Inspect 3D. Ed has delivered cutting edge new and refurbishment facade projects in Australasia, China, Singapore, the Middle East, the USA, mainland Europe and the UK. Ed brings his 30+ years of project delivery experience to seek to imagine new procurement models combining digital, sustainability and assurance excellence that can together first kick start more circularity in the facade industry and in-time make it commonplace.
''We don’t need new products, they are already there; we need new ways to deal with them and maximise their potential.''
Ruben Van Vooren is a PhD researcher at the department of Architectural Engineering at Vrije Universiteit Brussel. Trained as an architectural engineer (Ghent University, 2017), he worked as an architect at DAM architecten and conducted technical audits and feasibility studies at Bureau Bouwtechniek (BB). In his research, he aims to redirect redevelopment projects of office buildings towards value retention options (preserve, reuse, refurbish, remanufacture and repurpose) of façade products. He combines a focus on the value-network of the façade industry, decision-making processes in redevelopment projects and study processes in pioneering projects.
''Circular product design recalibrates the value of the object across the multiple domains of accountability of its making.''
Olga Ioannou is Assistant Professor at the Department of Architectural Engineering and Technology of TU Delft. She works for the chair of Building Product Innovation. She is co-chair of the Circular Built Environment Hub at TU Delft and a member of the Architectural Facades & Products (AF+P) group. Having a research background in architectural education, she is now actively involved in integrating circularity in BK curricula. Olga is particularly interested in the systemic character of circularity and how it challenges the established processes for the production of the built environment, stakeholder relations and societal values. Her current research focuses on circular products and processes with an emphasis on the design of bio-based circular building products and the creation of bio-based value chains.
''There is no such think as waste. ‘Waste’ material is just matter out of place.''
Professor Alex de Rijke is a founding Director of dRMM, having established the practice in 1995 with Philip Marsh and Sadie Morgan. He is a design champion, responsible for the concept, construction and delivery of dRMM’s timber projects including Sliding House, Kingsdale School, WorkStack, Tower of Love, Endless Stair, WoodBlock House, Maggie’s Oldham, and the Stirling Prize-winning Hastings Pier.
De Rijke was appointed as the first ever Professor of Timber Architecture at TU Delft in 2023 and has extensive teaching experience at various institutions including London South Bank University, the Düsseldorf School of Architecture, and the Architectural Association. He was Dean of Architecture at the Royal College of Art from 2011-2015, instigating a new culture of making and prototyping.
''Building Material Reuse is enhancing the value of sites, their people and resources.''
With a background in architecture and engineering, Fanny Thibault coordinates projects to promote and enable the reuse of building materials in the construction industry. As a member of the Bellastock architectural cooperative in France, specializes in consulting, research and teaching on the themes of the circular economy. Before joining Bellastock, Fanny worked in the Netherlands as a sustainability and circular economy consultant, specializing in urban metabolism and the modeling of material, energy and material flows.
''Don’t design façades, redesign how you collaborate.''
Waldo Galle is assistant professor on sustainability transitions at Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) and associate researcher for the Flemish Institute for Technological Research (VITO). As a member of the research groups VUB Architectural Engineering, and Business Technology and Operations, he studies the financial and socio-technical feasibility of a circular construction economy. After his PhD (VUB, 2016) Waldo continued to gain expertise during fundamental and strategic research and developed policy recommendations and design support tools. He gives lectures, guides students, and assists in training sessions for scholars and professionals on circular building and sustainability transitions.
''Circularity in building construction is not just about shuffling ‘stuff’ around for the sake of making a ‘green’ business. It’s about focusing on the value of the ‘stuff’ in a much broader sense. ''
Anne Beim is Professor in Architecture at the Royal Danish Academy - School of Architecture. Since 2004 she has been Chair of CINARK - Center for Industrialized Architecture at the Royal Danish Academy School of Architecture that researches current challenges in the construction industry. A central task of CINARK is to bridge the gap between architectural education, the construction industry, and the architectural profession. Many research projects that focus at topics across the framework of the construction industry, ecology and architecture have resulted in pivotal results over the years – amongst them are the Construction Material Pyramid and the Biogenic Construction project.