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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."
(Score: 2) by choose another one on Saturday November 04 2017, @11:53AM
Well, must be a market for it somewhere because round here 100+yr old reclaimed stone flooring goes for £100+ per sq yd, which is a _lot_ more than modern floor tiles. Means my kitchen floor is worth a few grand on its own. Haven't looked at prices for the stone in the walls, but I reckon a similar premium over modern materials, ditto the original 11inch wide pine floorboards (and the 8+in deep joists), which are still doing fine thanks.
But then I ain't tearing the house down any time soon, it's stood for over 150yrs and most likely it'll still be standing long after I've gone. Build stuff properly in the first place and there is no need to worry about recycling.