Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by martyb on Friday November 03 2017, @05:36PM   Printer-friendly
from the tinker-toy-technology dept.

Have building-size legos finally arrived?

The Institute for Civil Engineering and Environment (INCEEN) at the University of Luxembourg have signed a "memorandum of understanding" with the Suisse Federal Laboratories of Materials Science and Technology (Empa) of the domain of ETH Zürich to collaborate on research on energy efficiency in the construction sector.

As the building sector is generating a large amount of CO2 emissions, resource consumption and waste production, new eco-construction approaches are needed. Therefore, the first collaboration project entitled "Eco-Construction for Sustainable Development" (ECON4SD) will focus on the development of novel components and design models for resource and energy efficient buildings based on the construction materials concrete, steel and timber.

ECON4SD will bring together researchers from different civil engineering fields and architecture at the University of Luxembourg and the Empa Zürich, as well as from universities abroad in cooperation with partners from industry and consultancies in Luxembourg. One vision of the project is to develop building components that can be re-used after a building has reached the end of its life cycle and is disassembled. "The ECON4SD aims to turn buildings into materials and components banks and will allow producers of structural elements to come to a different business model. That would consist in loaning materials or components to customers and take them back after use in a particular building, in order to resell them directly, recondition or recycle them," commented professor Danièle Waldmann of the University of Luxembourg. "Thereby, the project paves the way for a future CE material or component passport comparable to the already existing energy passport."


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Grishnakh on Friday November 03 2017, @07:00PM (4 children)

    by Grishnakh (2831) on Friday November 03 2017, @07:00PM (#591811)

    Interior walls are usually drywall. You can't reuse that stuff; it's so brittle that attempting to remove it will fracture it. Plus it's cut to fit; there's holes for electric boxes, it's cut around openings, etc. The labor to try to reuse it would cost much more than just using a new panel.

    Reusing elevator components sounds like a good way to have an elevator accident and a huge liability suit. By the time an elevator is recycled, it'll be probably over 50 years old, and certainly not worth reusing; there wouldn't be any significant cost savings over a new one and it'll need extensive refurbishing.

    Starting Score:    1  point
    Moderation   +1  
       Interesting=1, Total=1
    Extra 'Interesting' Modifier   0  
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   3  
  • (Score: 2) by Nerdfest on Saturday November 04 2017, @01:11AM (3 children)

    by Nerdfest (80) on Saturday November 04 2017, @01:11AM (#591978)

    I'm picturing standard-sized reusable panels with build in electrical, networking, etc. Plain, with windows, with door, etc.

    • (Score: 3, Informative) by Grishnakh on Saturday November 04 2017, @02:24AM (2 children)

      by Grishnakh (2831) on Saturday November 04 2017, @02:24AM (#592016)

      And you think people will want to reuse these things after a half-century or more, and that styles and standards aren't going to change after all that time?

      People deride US houses for being cheaply made and not lasting that long, but even here they don't get torn down before at least 40-50 years at the very shortest (and that's only in places where the land is very valuable, so someone buys up a property with an older 50s house in the city, and tears it down because they want to build a bigger, more modern house, not because the old one was actually that bad).

      I'm sorry, but reusing networking is really laughable. What home networking standards did we have 50 years ago? Even 25 years ago? You can't even reuse Ethernet cables from 25 years ago, even though the plugs are the same: the speeds have gone up and they didn't have Cat6.

      And windows? Have you not noticed that windows have gotten a lot better in the last few decades? Ones from 25+ years ago have much worse insulation properties.

      This whole idea is like the idea of reusing parts from 30-year-old cars, or refurbishing 30-50-year-old cars instead of getting newer ones. Cars back then weren't just crappy and ugly, they had horrible fuel economy, unreliable engines, and terrible crash protection (no airbags, for instance), among many other deficiencies. Some of them are OK for collectors interested in their historical aspects, but compared to modern cars it would be really dumb of us as a society to hang onto those things; the highway death rate would go up greatly.

      • (Score: 2) by Nerdfest on Saturday November 04 2017, @03:48PM (1 child)

        by Nerdfest (80) on Saturday November 04 2017, @03:48PM (#592199)

        In the case of better insulation in walls and windows, etc, wouldn't re-usable, modular panels make this much easier? It's rarely done now, even though the energy savings might be significant. The old panels could be used for outbuildings or moved to more moderate climates for re-use. Just a thought.