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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."


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  • (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.

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  • (Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Saturday November 04 2017, @11:07PM

    by Grishnakh (2831) on Saturday November 04 2017, @11:07PM (#592304)

    Now that's a pretty good idea: make modular panels that are easy to replace so you can upgrade. They actually have something like this already, called "SIP" (structural insulating panel). It's basically like what you say here: they're basically two engineered wood panels with foam sandwiched in between them, and they just fit together on the edges.

    http://www.sips.org/about/what-are-sips [sips.org]
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Structural_insulated_panel [wikipedia.org]