LenA circular houses - Demonstration of the circular architecture design process for circular andreuse building based on the lighthouse project LenA

Starting point / motivation

The building sector is responsible for about 40 % of global CO2 emissions, according to the UN Buildings-GSR of 2022. Due to the linear economic system, valuable building materials are disposed of at the end of their life cycle despite their high material value, instead of keeping them in the cycle.

The reuse and deconstructability of building components contribute significantly to saving emissions. Currently, for various reasons, such as cost, expertise, warranty, inspectability, too little value, components are not reused or are only reused to a limited extent.

For several years, materialnomaden have been bringing their expertise on the circular economy to the construction industry through smaller projects. The company "circular house gmbh" was founded at the end of 2021. It acts as project developer and builder for the LenA project to be implemented.

The aim of the lead project is to demonstrate that with high building quality, lowest resource consumption and lowest emissions, circular building is possible both in renovation projects and in new construction projects. The project comprises three buildings with 3 independent units with a total usable floor space of 360 m2.

Contents and goals

The main objective is to research and demonstrate the positive climate impact of reuse. Through this (re)use, large shares of the emissions generated by the construction industry can be avoided and contribute to the targeted climate neutrality.

In order to be able to illustrate the positive effect, comparisons between new and re:use must be drawn up. This comparison will be made in structural, building physics and LCA. On the basis of an ecological comparative assessment, the LCA result, among other things, should show that a "re:use" building has positive effects for people and the environment compared to a conventional new building. The comparison or analysis of time and construction costs is also relevant to the project in order to explore the levers for future projects.

New dependencies and processes are created through component search, component catalogue creation (digitalisation of reusable components), special component planning, etc. These innovative tools must be integrated into the processes of conventional architectural planning or building construction project management. The goal is to create flexible and adaptable processes in order to adapt to changes and overcome unforeseen challenges.

Methods

Before the start of a re:use project, the "deconstruction" phase for the building component database is an additional service that has not been considered in conventional planning projects to date. Besides the concrete, ecological and economic project goals, re:use also has great potential for social sustainability.

In order to create more awareness and appreciation for what already exists, BASEhabitat (Kunstuni Linz), among others, is involved in the consortium to provide the planners of tomorrow with these insights. The Camillo Sitte Bautechnikum (HTL Vienna) is also involved, where students will carry out material tests of re:use components and presumably also diploma theses in order to get to know and establish new teaching about recyclable and re:use building.

In order to accompany this project from a social science perspective, Prof. Dr. Madlen Kobi from the University of Fribourg (CH) will be involved, who with her PRIMA project "Urban Bricolage. Mining, Designing and Constructing with Reused Building Materials", she will look at the effects of reuse from a social anthropological perspective.

Expected results

All results will be recorded and the solutions for circular building will be incorporated into the manual for "circular architecture design rules". For the innovative approaches and analyses, the project is well chosen in this size to achieve sufficient data and insights for the intended handbook "circular architecture design rules". The principles of re:use and circular building can also be implemented on a larger scale, as projects throughout Europe and other European countries have already shown.

From the implementation project, results are to be gained that will enable a catalogue of measures to be drawn up with regard to the use of components and building materials, CO2 neutrality in construction and operation, as well as the 3 sustainable aspects considering habitat.

Project management

materialnomaden gmbh & circular house gmbh, Andrea Kessler

Project or cooperation partners

• Camillo Sitte Versuchsanstalt für Bautechnik Bautechnikum und Versuchsanstalt Wien III
• circular house gmbh
• EXIKON arc&dev
• Universität für künstlerische und industrielle Gestaltung Linz - RUD/die architektur/BASEhabitat

materialnomaden gmbh
Belvederegasse 14-16
Tel.: +43 (664) 5677474
E-mail: lena@circularhouse.eu
Web: http://circularhouse.eu