What will the future of construction look like? How can the currently linear value chain for housing construction become circular? Can industrially produced wooden houses be the answer and contribute to a shift towards a more circular construction sector with increased reuse?
Reusing materials is an important way to meet society's climate challenges and reduce waste. Leaving the linear flow of materials and creating a more circular mindset is also important in housing construction. There is a need for knowledge about how to build today in order to be able to reuse in the future and thereby save the planet's resources.
The research institute RISE and IVL Swedish Environmental Research Institute, together with 16 partners from the construction value chain, are conducting a project entitled "Future design - Reuse of wooden buildings in a circular economy". The project is developing demountable and reusable wooden buildings to increase environmental benefits and at the same time increase collaboration in the circular value chain for residential construction. The wooden buildings should be easy to disassemble and flexible to change so that they can be used for different applications over a long period of time while maintaining value and reducing construction waste. The aim is to demonstrate opportunities and systems suitable for disassembly, reassembly and reuse.
Everyone is needed to create circular flows
To leave the linear material flow and create a more circular way of thinking, it is important to engage all parties and build a common understanding of the interaction in the circular value chain. The project participants' competencies and experiences have been the basis for assumptions and scenarios that have then been used to estimate and simulate disassembly, reassembly, reusability and calculate climate benefits (such as waste quantities and additional new materials during construction, energy use in the factory and on the construction site). This created a common methodology that was used to simulate disassembly and reassembly on two buildings.
Two timber buildings as examples for future design
Documentation was produced for two building projects to demonstrate reusability and climate benefits from different perspectives. The building projects are Folkhem's planned construction of five new residential buildings in the Klockelund block in Farsta and the "Flexibility House" around Kiruna and Skellefteå municipality. One building project is based on industrially manufactured house volumes and the other on plan elements from the partnership's representatives of the wooden house industry.
Demountable and reassemblable wooden building with industrially manufactured volumes
The Folkhemmets building project is a planned building in the Klockelund neighborhood in Farsta. In the project, a dismantling plan was developed with instructions for information management for dismantling construction with volume elements. The plan describes steps for dismantling such as securing walls and floors for fire and strength, details for dismantling installations, joints, lifts, balconies, stairs, attics, roofs, facades and lifting of roof and volume elements. There is great potential to reduce the climate impact when reusing industrially produced wooden volume elements. The climate impact was calculated using LCA (life cycle analysis) for the product phase (A1-A3 in the standard), the construction production phase (A4-A5) and the final phase (C1), which includes dismantling and demolition.
"Flexibility House" a flexible timber building with reusable plan elements
The great need for housing in a changing housing market in the north presents both short-term and long-term challenges. Many homes are already being built today with simple modular solutions for incoming entrepreneurs and students, but to attract skills and labor, attractive living environments and services are required. Based on this challenge and the need to respond to the constant changes in society, the concept of the 'Flexibility House' was developed. It is a flexible dismountable building that can be modified, moved and added to as needed, adapting to its context and enriching the site on which it stands.
The aim is for the Flexibility House to save resources in all phases of its life cycle and thus have a low climate impact. The climate benefits of reuse are significant in both projects, with the advantage that it is already possible to reuse industrially manufactured volume elements. Reuse is facilitated by the industrial production because all information from the design is available, which the manufacturers of volume elements Derome, Lindbäcks Bygg and OBOS confirm.
The buildings developed according to the method of the Future Design project can already be ordered today, but it is important to contact the suppliers at an early stage of your project to increase the accuracy of what you want and to ensure that both design and construction are efficient.
This is an article from our magazine Trävärden, view it here! (Link)
COMPARATIVE CLIMATE IMPACT CALCULATIONS WERE MADE IN FOUR DIFFERENT PHASES:
Phase 1 New construction (initial building), extraction of raw materials, manufacturing of materials and products, transportation and construction.
Phase 2 Change of layout/function, walls moved, new walls manufactured/transported, replaced walls transported.
Phase 3 Change of location, including dismantling, transportation and reassembly and recycling of replaced parts.
Phase 4 Extension, from two to four floors with elevator, new building parts, roof dismantled/reassembled, new floors and elevator installed, recycling of replaced parts.
