Circular Industrialised Construction

Abstract

Industrialised Construction gains traction as it is seen as a solution to create resource efficiencies in the Built Environment. In practice, this increase in industrialisation leads to an increase in standardisation efforts. Meanwhile, the Circular Economy is incrementally being introduced to the Built Environment. Circular Building is often applied through designing or constructing buildings made out of modular components. The combined efforts of Industrialised Construction and Circular Building, often depicted as standardised modular building or Circular Industrialised Construction, are being researched. However, we know very little about the operation and end-of-life strategies of these buildings.

This research examines the strategies three case companies apply for their standardised modular buildings' operation and end-of-life phases. The research is carried out by conducting interviews with employees of the three case companies. The initial selection of case companies, CitizenM, Daiwa Modular Europe, and Home.Earth, is based on their utilisation of industrialised building methods and their assertions regarding circularity. Additionally, the companies are selected by a few diversifying characteristics, such as whether they are owner/developer, the type of real estate they develop, and the type of components they manufacture (volumetric or planar). After the initial within-case analysis, a cross-case analysis is carried out.

The case studies demonstrate that there exist many differentiating approaches to the operation and end-of-life phases of Circular Industrialised Construction buildings. A reason for these varying methods is on which building layers significant efforts are made to circularise the buildings. An important enabler of circularising the operation and end-of-life phase is to appropriate the design phase and extensively collaborate in or with the manufacturing phase. Additionally, some pitfalls are identified for the application of Circular Industrialised Construction.

Based on the initial results, a Circular Industrialised Construction framework is being proposed. The framework combines the different Shearing Layers Concept and the different phases associated with Industrialised Construction and design. The framework categorises the identified strategies in the different phases based on the Shearing Layer Concept. The aim is to provide a directory that allows companies to incrementally implement circularity efforts or adopt an Industrialised Construction approach.