What would it take to make building with reused materials as simple as building with new ones? Andreas Oefner, managing director of Zirkular GmbH, discusses how circular construction depends not only on materials, but on rethinking entire processes. Drawing from his background in architectural drafting and history, he reflects on how technical knowledge and systems thinking can come together in the challenge of scaling reuse.

Product passports are a helpful tool for preserving the identities of building materials and meeting sustainability requirements. But voluntary product passports have unique advantages beyond legal requirements and audits. Pedro Mêda, civil engineer and researcher at the University of Porto, discusses how data-driven logbooks and digital material passports could reshape circular construction. 

How can technology help us better understand the built environment? Fiona Collins, Artificial Intelligence Research Engineer at Hexagon, discusses how reality capture, point clouds, and artificial intelligence are reshaping the relationship between the physical and digital worlds. Collins reflects on why bridging the gap between digital models and real-world conditions remains one of the field’s biggest challenges.

Computer vision is reshaping the way we understand the environment around us. Konrad Schindler, professor of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing at ETH Zurich, discusses how remote sensing and photogrammetry are transforming the way we map, analyze, and interpret the world around us.

Determining the sustainability of circularity and reuse is not easy to do. Life cycle sustainability assessment offers a way for evaluating environmental, economic and social impact. Marzia Traverso discusses the complexity of quantifying tradeoffs, standardizing frameworks, and finding consensus for circularity in practice.

Expert craftsmanship is indispensable, but having access to optimal tools can transform approaches to design. Woodworking technician Andreas Rhyner talks about his own training as a joiner and how he challenges himself to find new possibilities using digital technologies. His experience using new machines, software, and computer-aided design to build furniture has shaped his perspective on the future of woodworking and reuse. 

Kevin Kimwelle was never convinced that megastructures and massive development projects are the best way to serve African communities. Yet teaching sustainability to communities who already live it seemed hypocritical. Instead, he practices community architecture, which foregrounds local knowledge as its greatest asset.

Biology might seem like a discipline unrelated to construction. But nature self-organizes to build itself in fascinatingly complex ways. Gizem Gumuskaya brings together design aspects from synthetic biology to advance engineering methods that could one day construct self-organizing structures.

Reuse in construction requires experimentation. The lack of established protocols and standard materials opens new realms of engagement for architects and engineers alike. Anna MacIver-Ek and Axel Chevroulet discuss how working with like-minded colleagues gives them freedom to experiment with new ideas and designs.

When people work with circular materials, they don’t get to start with a blank canvas of unlimited options. But Latifa Alkhayat describes how creative constraints can inspire new directions for the afterlives of materials.

Digital manufacturing, material processing methods, and modular systems can help us create more circular structures. But how far can 3D printing and automation really take us? Marirena Kladeftira talks about the benefits and drawbacks of new technologies and traditional materials.

When people think of 3D printing, they often think of plastic structures. But Virginia San Fratello experiments in printing with materials like sand, clay, sawdust and even bonemeal to create haptic and comfortable structures made from local waste to fuse science and art.

Observation and imagination enable Ana Vargas to transform informal settlements together with their inhabitants. In this episode, she talks about her methods and designing together with children to co-create the playgrounds of their dreams using recovered materials.

Increasing impact in the circular economy depends on investment and entrepreneurship. But how can companies and startups design a world without waste and help us stay within our planetary boundaries?

What if construction waste were considered the result of a design error? Elma Durmisevic suggests that innovating adaptable, dynamic and innovative building systems would help create a circular value chain to prevent waste from ever being produced.

Michaël Ghyoot, project manager at Rotor, about what is involved in reusing building materials: from carrying out reclamation audits to cleaning, preparing, storing, and actually reusing the components themselves.

The current construction sector is not sustainable. The sector produces 30% of global waste and 40% of human-generated CO2 emissions. Life cycle analysis, green labels, and concepts such as a material diet can help transform the construction industry.

Today, many people use artificial intelligence to find their ideal partner. Can AI or this technology also find the best match in the construction industry? Dr Catherine De Wolf works on automation for the reuse of building materials.

Scanning is essential for knowing what materials are in buildings in order to renovate, reuse, or deconstruct them sustainably. New and ever improving technologies help engineers understand what materials are in a building so that they can better plan what to do with them.

Many of the current efforts to mitigate climate change and its effects rely on digital solutions. But what would our designs for landscapes and buildings of the future look like if we slowed down and paid more attention to the traditional knowledge that humans have acquired over millennia?