Design for the Future - Reuse of Timber Buildings in a Circular Economy

The focus on the project is to enable the circularity of timber buildings through:

- that they are designed to be easy to disassemble, flexible when changing destination use and innovative.

- assembled wooden building products are planned to be prepared for reuse, including how their strength and durability can be maintained over time. -

- the possibility of reusing them in new applications offers to them a resale value and thus construction wood waste is reduced or, eventually, discontinued.

- the digital product and environmental data gets to be used along the entire supply chian, from design to dismantling aiming to facilitate future reuse.

The hypothesis verified in the project is that it is good for climate and economically profitable to increase the circularity of wooden structures.

Activity in the project is based on verification and evaluation of the concept "Design of the Future", development of the concept into products on the market and new business models for partners based on the building's circular flow.

The purpose of the project is to contribute with solutions and conditions for political strategies for circular economy and sustainable development to be achieved. The project contributes to Sweden becoming a pioneering country in the transition to a circular economy when it comes to wood construction and shows examples of responsible and resource-efficient use of wood raw material from Swedish forests.

Expected results:

- Demonstration buildings that inspire and disseminate knowledge to the public, stakeholders, and researchers in Sweden and internationally

- Commonly-structured process and plans (guides) to disassemble and reassemble structures.

- Knowledge of the use of LCA calculations and assessment of circularity linked to BIM.

- Input to European standardization and to the National Board of Housing, Building and Planning both within functional requirements (sorting and assessment of the quality of recycled wood) and calculation of environmental benefits.

- Method for calculating the environmental performance of the "design-to-be-reused" wooden structures developed as demonstrators