Circular Economy Design Research Articles

Introducing circularity in early architectural design education

PurposeWith around 40% of global waste attributed to the built environment sector, architects play a significant role in how resources are consumed, produced and wasted. UK architectural educators have made good progress to embed climate emergency issues in design curricula but the challenges of resource use and waste, and the opportunities afforded by circular economy design principles are less well-considered. The purpose of this paper is to provide new insights on how to introduce circular design principles to early-stage architectural design students within university curricula.Design/methodology/approachThe study described took an experimental approach to designing design project briefs across several interlinked studio design projects for 1st-year Architecture students. Structured as a case study, each section describes the project, learning objectives, teaching methods and project reflections informed by a qualitative assessment of student development, outputs and feedback gathered through a questionnaire and focus group.FindingsIntroducing circular design early is highly beneficial to the development of knowledge on sustainability issues, critical design thinking and creative solution generation. Examples of beneficial teaching approaches include building systems thinking, facilitating collaboration, supporting learning-through-making, using simple analogies and referencing best-practice examples.Originality/valueThis research builds on limited existing circular design literature for built environment fields and through practical insights fills a significant knowledge gap on ways to introduce a complex and dynamic topic such as the circular economy to early-stage architectural design students as they develop fundamental discipline-specific knowledge, skills and competences.

Circular economy design strategies in mass timber construction: a systematic literature review

PurposeThis study evaluates the implementation of circular economy (CE) design strategies in mass timber construction to identify knowledge gaps and define crucial future research areas for promoting CE design adoption in this field.Design/methodology/approachA two-stage systematic literature review (SLR) was conducted to, first, identify CE design strategies applicable to the construction industry and then investigate the current state of CE design research in mass timber construction. Scopus and Web of Science databases were searched for relevant literature. In total, 52 peer-reviewed journal articles published between 2016 and 2023 were shortlisted. Descriptive and thematic analyses were then employed to analyse and synthesise the relevant literature.FindingsSeven CE design strategies were identified in the first stage of the SLR. The second stage of the SLR revealed limited research on CE design strategies in mass timber construction. Several research problems were identified, including a lack of suitable connectors for the deconstruction phase, durability concerns, insufficient knowledge of CE design methods, lack of knowledge and education about mass timber construction, missing actors within the value chain, higher cost, an underdeveloped market and inadequate regulatory requirements. These findings highlighted the future research directions to foster CE design adoption in mass timber construction.Originality/valueThe study systematically identifies existing knowledge on the application of CE design strategies in mass timber construction. Moreover, it presents a conceptual framework that links current research problems to future research directions across technical, social, economic and regulatory categories, thereby advancing CE practice in mass timber construction.

Open-Source T-Slot Aluminum Furniture: AR-Assisted Design for Circular Economy and User-Centered Solutions

Open-Source T-Slot Aluminum Furniture: AR-Assisted Design for Circular Economy and User-Centered Solutions

Flipflopi: Circular economy design inspiration from a recycled plastic sailing dhow

Flipflopi is an East African organisation with a mission to end single use plastic, driving this agenda using circular economy principles applied to the design and build of fully recycled plastic sailing dhows from their boatyard in Lamu Kenya. Flipflopi has achieved measurable global impact by showcasing the world’s first ocean going recycled sailing boat, Ndogo, a 9 metre long, lateen rigged dhow which has sailed the East African coastline and across Lake Victoria. Flipflopi is now aiming to build a much larger ocean-going dhow, named Kubwa, which presents further technical challenges from a marine design perspective. To meet these challenges. Flipflopi are utilising a combination of generational heritage boatbuilding expertise in Lamu; specific design experience from building and sailing Ndogo; technological progress driven by other recycled plastic projects; and more formalised naval architecture and engineering design approaches. This paper introduces the context within which Flipflopi is centred, the links to circular economy design principles and the specific design challenges from working with recycled plastic as a boatbuilding material.

Design and collaboration strategies for circular economy implementation across the value chain

AbstractBased on circular economy readiness assessments of six value chain layers, 18 design strategies and five collaboration strategies for circular economy were identified. The design strategies have many applications, from the design of materials, products, and processes to business models, and while some are specific to determined layers, others can be addressed by companies in multiple layers. Furthermore, collaboration across the value chain was found to affect positively the employment of circular economy design strategies, contributing to the fulfilment of solutions’ circularity potential.

Olive pomace bioactives for functional foods and cosmetics

The reuse and valorization of olive mill by-products, among others, is getting attention in the food and drugs-cosmetics sectors, due the recovery of their essential bioactive compounds in order to incorporate them as ingredients in functional foods, cosmetics, and pharmaceuticals. Olive pomace represents olive mill's main residue (by-product), and it is a sustainable and of low-cost renewable source of several bioactive compounds, while its valorization can reduce its environmental impact and make it an additional economic resource for food industries in a circular economy design. In this article, the natural bio-functional compounds of olive pomace with antioxidant and anti-inflammatory bioactivities are thoroughly reviewed. The incorporation of such bioactives as ingredients in functional foods and cosmetics is also discussed in detail. The limitations of such applications are also presented. Thus, promising techniques, such as encapsulation, and their applications for stabilizing and masking undesirable characteristics of such compounds, are also exhibited. The so far promising in vitro outcomes seem to support further in vivo assessment in trials-based setting.

Design for Circular Economy in a Strong Sustainability Paradigm

Given the strategic role of design when addressing societal changes and its prominence in the circular economy (CE) discourse and practice during the past decade, a plethora of tools and methods is nowadays available to support organizations in the transition from a linear model of production to a circular one. The need for an intersection of CE, corporate sustainability, strategic design and strong sustainability is gaining momentum. Considering (a) the critical voices pointing out several limitations to the CE concept, (b) the call for linking CE to a strong sustainability paradigm and (c) the implementation mechanisms for an effective contribution to sustainable development, the focus of this research is to address the gap in CE and circular design frameworks due to missing elements therein for its successful implementation, using a Delphi method approach. Our results strongly suggest that the current CE and circular design concepts and practices are insufficient to meet the challenge of addressing strong sustainability, and new models are needed. To conclude, a new definition of design for CE in a strong sustainability paradigm and a first approach to the main elements of the new model assisted by guiding principles are proposed.

Design Heuristics Cards for circular economy to support generating ideas

The field of design for circular economy lacks comprehensive and systematic design aids to support users to generate ideas quickly and effectively. This study uses ReSOVLE as a framework, incorporates the lifecycle design approaches, and constructs the Circular Economy Design Heuristics Cards (CEDHC) by extracting strategies relevant to innovative product design, service design, and business model innovation into the form of design heuristics to support ideation, and incorporating TRIZ problem solving strategies to facilitate the iteration of original ideas. The CEDHC include design heuristics, textual explanations, cases and TRIZ 40 inventive principles. Two sessions were conducted to illustrate the efficacy of the CEDHC to support idea generation in the field of design for circular economy.

Design of a syringe extension device (Chloe SED®) for low-resource settings in sub-Saharan Africa: a circular economy approach.

Underfunded healthcare infrastructures in low-resource settings in sub-Saharan Africa have resulted in a lack of medical devices crucial to provide healthcare for all. A representative example of this scenario is medical devices to administer paracervical blocks during gynaecological procedures. Devices needed for this procedure are usually unavailable or expensive. Without these devices, providing paracervical blocks for women in need is impossible resulting in compromising the quality of care for women requiring gynaecological procedures such as loop electrosurgical excision, treatment of miscarriage, or incomplete abortion. In that perspective, interventions that can be integrated into the healthcare system in low-resource settings to provide women needing paracervical blocks remain urgent. Based on a context-specific approach while leveraging circular economy design principles, this research catalogues the development of a new medical device called Chloe SED® that can be used to support the provision of paracervical blocks. Chloe SED®, priced at US$ 1.5 per device when produced in polypropylene, US$ 10 in polyetheretherketone, and US$ 15 in aluminium, is attached to any 10-cc syringe in low-resource settings to provide paracervical blocks. The device is designed for durability, repairability, maintainability, upgradeability, and recyclability to address environmental sustainability issues in the healthcare domain. Achieving the design of Chloe SED® from a context-specific and circular economy approach revealed correlations between the material choice to manufacture the device, the device's initial cost, product durability and reuse cycle, reprocessing method and cost, and environmental impact. These correlations can be seen as interconnected conflicting or divergent trade-offs that need to be continually assessed to deliver a medical device that provides healthcare for all with limited environmental impact. The study findings are intended to be seen as efforts to make available medical devices to support women's access to reproductive health services.

Developing product level indicators to advance the nitrogen circular economy

Increasingly, circularity indicators for material, energy, and water systems guide circular economy design. While indicators for products made from recycled carbon-based materials are somewhat common, peer indicators for waste nitrogen-derived products are limited. It is important, however, to develop such indicators to guide emerging technologies that transform waste nitrogen into products. In this study, we summarize the nitrogen circularity indicator literature, emphasizing the agricultural and wastewater sectors. Next, we use the Material Circularity Indicator (MCI) developed by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, to quantify the circularity of products made from waste nitrogen in swine manure. We considered four test cases using different technologies to recover nitrogen from the manure. Our analysis indicates that technologies that seem to increase circularity on the surface may not yield a substantial increase in MCI results. Finally, we discuss the strengths and weaknesses of using the MCI for product-level analysis and further developments.

Design for Deconstruction: Benefits, Challenges, and Outlook for Timber–Concrete Composite Floors

Design for deconstruction (DfD) considers the end-of-life scenario of buildings at an early design stage to ensure that these buildings (or parts of the buildings) can be deconstructed without unproportional effort and material loss. After deconstruction, the elements or materials can be used for future purposes such as reusing (preferably), remanufacturing, or recycling. This opinion paper is aimed to advocate for DfD in timber–concrete composite (TCC) floors as it represents an important contribution toward circular economy design and creates a more sustainable built environment. Different end-of-life scenarios for TCC floors according to their original design and connection type were initially explored. Existing deconstructable connection systems that could enable DfD in TCC floors were reviewed. Furthermore, potential challenges relating to the implementation of DfD in TCC floors are briefly highlighted. Finally, a discussion around the outlook and actions that might be needed to address some of the identified challenges is provided. This paper proposes directions for future developments and contributes to the understanding and promotion of DfD in TCC floors with an emphasis on deconstructable connectors that can enable material recovery and reuse as the preferred end-of-life scenario.

Assessing the resilience of circularity in water management: a modeling framework to redesign and stress-test regional systems under uncertainty

ABSTRACT Contrary to the ‘make-use-dispose’ linearity of conventional management, circular economy design principles have been proposed as a resource management alternative that reduces waste and promotes efficiency. These principles also find use in water management, offering an alternative against centralized models. Despite the intrinsic links between circularity and resilience, few studies have advanced the identification and discussion of linkage beyond a theoretical or conceptual level. This study presents quantitative links between circularity and resilience, by demonstrating how different circular water management strategies lead to improved resilience performance for a regional urban-rural water system. A stress-testing framework based on a water cycle model is presented, where different circular interventions are evaluated in terms of their overall resilience against future uncertainty. The results demonstrate that circular water options lead to more resilient water systems. The more circular dimensions are addressed through interventions, the more robust resilience profiles become across different water cycle domains.

Sustainable Mycelium-Bound Biocomposites: Design Strategies, Materials Properties, and Emerging Applications

Extrication from the use of fossil-based products has grown more critical in recent years. This disengagement has been driven by deliberate environmental campaigns focusing on climate change and global warming threats and their consequences to humanity. As such, innovative replacements for fossil-based products, primarily by biobased materials, have recently been of considerable interest. Among the biobased materials, mycelium-bound biocomposites enhanced biologically or by nontoxic additives are one of the most creative and ecofriendly solutions because it fulfills the three pillars of sustainable development with positive impacts via circular economy design principles. In this review, the potential of mycelium-bound biocomposites is elucidated by comprehensively covering their state-of-the-art production from design strategies (variety of species, substrates, additives, and growth conditions) to postprocessing techniques and the resulting advanced material features. This review also covers the intriguing and growing areas of applications for mycelium-bound biocomposites, as well as the future outlook for enhanced material circularity and sustainability.

Towards a circular economy in virgin olive oil production: Valorization of the olive mill waste (OMW) “alpeorujo” through polyphenol recovery with natural deep eutectic solvents (NADESs) and vermicomposting

Virgin olive oil (VOO) production generates large amounts of a harmful by-product, olive mill waste (OMW) or alpeorujo, which has a strong environmental impact and that must be recycled to adapt VOO production to a circular economy model. Here, the valorization of OMW was studied by considering three consecutive stages: Stage 1 involves the generation of OMW; Stage 2 the recovery of bioactive phenolic compounds from the fresh OMW using natural deep eutectic solvents (NADESs), generating a valuable phenolic extract and a new by-product, a dephenolized OMW named “alpeoNADES”; and Stage 3 involves vermicomposting alpeoNADES with Eisenia fetida earthworms. Six NADES were formulated and tested, selecting a NADES composed of citric acid and fructose (CF) derived from food grade and biodegradable substances. CF was the most effective solvent to obtain phenolic extracts for nutraceutical and agronomical purposes, extracting 3988.74 mg/kg of polyphenols from fresh OMW. This alpeoNADES is a non-palatable substrate for E. fetida earthworms, as the residual CF gives it an acidic pH (pH 2). Its palatability was improved by mixing it with horse manure and straw for vermicomposting, in a 1:1 and 3:1 dry weight ratio. When these substrates were precomposted for 3 weeks they reached pH 5.5–6 and they could then be vermicomposted for 23 weeks (using OMW as a control). The best substrate for vermicomposting was determined by the worm biomass, growth rate, carbon to nitrogen (C:N) ratio, and N and P content. AlpeoNADES and manure 3:1 produced the highest quality vermicompost in the shortest time, generating a product that complied with European standards for organic fertilizers. Hence, alpeoNADES was recycled to a low-cost, organic balanced fertilizer in Stage 3, enabling the olive oil industry to transition to sustainable production through this integrated circular economy design.

Development of the Circular Economy Design Guidelines for the Australian Built Environment Sector

The construction and demolition (C&D) waste stream is the main source of solid waste in Australia. While there is a strong circularity drive in Australia’s and state/territory governments’ waste regulatory framework, clear guidelines for C&D waste management are yet to be developed for the built environment sector in Australia. This study proposes a suite of construction industry-specific guidelines for achieving circular economy (CE) goals by reviewing issues related to “Design for Zero Waste” (DfZW) and “Design for Recycling” (DfR). To do so, this study explores the current CE practices in construction and infrastructure projects in both global and Australian contexts through a systematic literature review. In addition, barriers and enablers of CE in the built environment were identified. This study provides a list of guidelines that can help industry practitioners achieve CE in the construction sector in Australia. These guidelines draw on the main themes identified through the literature review: circularity practices, resource management, innovation, and optimisation. Thus, this study bridges the gap between theory and practice by offering clear, circular guidelines for designing out C&D waste in Australia. The proposed guidelines enable industry practitioners to keep products and materials in use for a longer period and develop strategies to regenerate natural systems. Future research should focus on several aspects, including measuring emissions reductions linked to the strategies shown in the proposed guidelines.

Digitalised circular construction supply chain: An integrated BIM-Blockchain solution

Blockchain and smart contracts are measures to speed up the diffusion of circular economy into construction processes. Nevertheless, integrated solutions that cover all the aspects of circular supply chain including network structure, business processes, and the products are still missing. This paper is an attempt to bridge this gap, through offering a workable solution to address the disconnected nature of blockchain adoption across construction procedures. Informed by the overall approach of design science research (DSR), the solution is created following the five-staged procedure of DSR: (1) problem identification, (2) treatment suggestion, (3) treatment design, (4) evaluation and (5) conclusion. Findings establish that the proposed solution is novel in several ways; it: (1) enables construction practitioners to share their building components information on a safe and immutable medium; (2) enables government authorities (i.e., city council) to track the treatment and delivery of hazardous products/materials; (3) supports the upstream circular economy design through fostering collaboration among ‘designers to designers’ and ‘designers to asset owners’ in a blockchain network; and (4) supports developing ‘a bank of reusable BIM families’, encouraging designers to use these items in their designs. Apart from these contributions, this study provides some fertile ground for future research. Chief among all: future studies can provide fully automated systems through integrating the solution presented here with the Internet of Things (IoT); and researchers that validate the workability of the proposed solution across various contexts and real-life projects in exposure to various settings and peculiarities.

Circular Economy Design towards Zero Waste: Laying the foundation for constructive stakeholder engagement on improving construction, renovation, and demolition (CRD) waste management

The city of Montréal is one of many cities worldwide who strive to cut the amount of waste they generate and advance towards zero waste in an effort to meet the Paris Agreement goals. Construction, renovation, and demolition (CRD) waste is a major contributor to urban waste streams but also an area where waste diversion and innovative waste management approaches could deliver significant reductions in waste. One such promising approach is that of circular economy which envisions a future where CRD waste is designed-out of the built environment by keeping construction materials in use. This paper presents a series of methods used to collect and organize data towards advancing circular thinking within CRD material management decision-making in Montréal and mobilizing engagement with the relevant data. Methods includes a detailed literature review, semi-structured interviews with stakeholders from across the building sector value chain followed by a thematic analysis. Collected data is mapped to the internationally recognized United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) framework in an aim to provide globally significant methodologies which cities worldwide can use to showcase contributions to the UN SDGs. Advancing towards zero CRD waste in Montréal will require the input of multiple stakeholders. The work presented in this paper is part of a larger research effort which works to deliver an initial but vital first step in the collection, integration, and dissemination of data towards a circular, more sustainable, built environment.

Sustainable Systems Engineering Course Design: Design for Systems and Society

The new Sustainable Systems Engineering program at the University of Calgary aims to disrupt sustainability education by imbedding a systems approach and regenerative design mindset throughout. This paper provides an overview of a second-year design course, SUSE 301, Design for Systems and Society. The course introduces students to concepts of design for circular economy, regenerative design, and design for justice. Underlying all of these concepts is the idea of transformative learning through a systems thinking approach. Course assignments include chapter studies and discussions, critical reflection through a praxis experiment, and community-engaged design project. Overall, we hope to foster mindsets to develop engineering students who are able to fundamentally shift the discourse on sustainability engineering within industry, and critically reflect on the role of engineering itself. This course aims to provide students with the necessary tools and mindsets to foster real change across engineering industries to better support the interrelated elements of our society and planet.

Achieving sustainable industrial ecosystems by design: A study of the ICT and electronics industry in Taiwan

The environmental and economic aspects of sustainability have been the most common subjects in the manufacturing industry, while the social one tends to be neglected. The process of semistructured interviews is conducted with design practitioners in the computer, communication, and consumer electronics industry in Taiwan to comprehend how the participating companies can move from a business-as-usual model to a more sustainable business by design. Results show that ecodesign and design for circular economy are commonly applied as sustainable design strategies, highlighting the concept of dematerialization. The three pragmatic tools applied alongside for balancing the three pillars of sustainability are life cycle thinking, design thinking, and business model tools. To achieve sustainable industrial ecosystems, three key actors, namely, a driver, a facilitator, and a supporter, play an important role to create stakeholder engagement and supply chain collaboration. Hence, the companies must tackle major challenges related to organizational culture, social reputation and communication, resource availability, service at the end of life, and effective waste treatment. Relying solely on product level for sustainability is insufficient; the companies need to tap into socio-technical systems by creating new partnerships, supporting multidisciplinary teams, embracing new markets, integrating emerging technologies for social sustainability, and promoting innovative and social inclusive thinking.

Tendency to Circular Economy

Urbanization and building production that accelerate with globalization, cause excessive resource consumption and waste generation. The circular economy concept which is a contemporary economy approach, has been developed to solve this environmental and economic problem. The construction sector and architectural practice that provide building production need innovative solutions through the circular economy concept, as they consume different resources and produce waste crises. The circular economy concept is applied with the "adaptive reuse" approach in the field of architecture. One of the important applications of the concept of adaptive reuse is the reuse of architectural elements and materials. However, the relationship between the concept of circular economy and the reuse of architectural elements can be developed by examining several recent projects and its advantages. In this article, it is aimed to examine the relationship of this architectural reuse approach with the circular economy concept and to emphasize its importance. For this purpose, the theoretical perspectives and effects of circular economy were examined in the first part of the article, and the reflections of the circular economy concept on architecture were given in the second part. This section continues with description of the comparative analysis methodology that relates the building life cycle and circular economy principles to examine the architectural projects built as an example of circular economy paradigm. In the third chapter, two architectural sample projects built in China and France were selected and introduced. Being pioneers in their countries in circular economy approaches and the different environmental policies of countries have been effective in the selection of examples from different geographies. The fourth part consists of analyzing the projects according to circular economy parameters using comparative analysis method. In the last section, analysis results show that although China is one of the pioneers in adopting circular economy principles with architectural design and building life cycle, it has been found that France considers circular economy design from a broader perspective. Also, the design approach with circular economy criteria in different stage of building life cycle is gaining momentum over the years through national and local governments and collaborations. It is recommended that technological design systems such as BIM can be developed as integrated cloud systems that can share information from other sectors. Because the building life cycle is not only related to the architecture and construction sector. It is a cyclical system and economy that works with different sectors such as supply and waste management.