The Building Owner's Opportunity to Disrupt the Construction and Built Environment

Building Owners + Digital Twins + Circular Economy = Winning at Sustainability

Can the global market appetite for construction materials estimated at US$1trillion in 2020 (estimated at US$1.5 trillion by 2027 ) and consuming ~40% of all natural resources, ignore the?mega trends of material scarcity, climate change, zero carbon, GHG emissions, zero waste and coming legislation???The call for disruption in the built environment is every day news in the US, EU and UK. and change is happening unevenly, but the step-change needed is yet to occur at scale.?

With sustainability as its new mandate, can the Architectural, Engineering and Construction (AEC) sector, led by building owners and operators, level-up in innovation to the same degree as the manufacturing sector by accelerating the adoption of technologies like digital twins, building information modelling (BIM), facilities management, internet of things (IoT), scanning/LiDAR, etc.? And what if we added circular economy (CE) principles in the mix for even greater disruptive innovations???How do we reframe and reimagine what we do today in a way that considers the needs of all stakeholders, building owners, shareholders residents, city officials, future generations, and secures our viable existence on a fast-warming planet?

For building ownership and operators, there may be a myriad?of solutions being considered, but specifying (and paying) for appropriate technology to be used and the CE framework gives us the tools to anticipate (at the very beginning of a project/ product), the complete end-to-end building lifecycle of technical and biological materials by a) consciously planning for future-proofing small and large built environment asset portfolios b) creating strategies to deal with X-life scenarios/secondary materials to mitigate unwanted externalities and c) exceeding minimum legislative and regulatory criteria through innovative design and new business models.?In addition, the CE is effectively a combination of several new and old innovative schools of thought ;?

When combined with the technologies mentioned above, the CE is uniquely positioned to address the current challenges of material scarcity and climate change by designing out waste and pollution, keeping products and materials in use longer, and ensuring business growth even when decoupled from natural resources by regenerating natural systems.??

In this article, we’ll be?reviewing ?a couple of case studies at what’s possible if we look through the CE lens and frameworks and the adoption of AEC technologies.?

What’s In It For The AEC Sector???? A Leap Frog Strategy into Greater Sustainability

It makes possible an economy that’s profitable socially, environmentally and climate-wise, while creating better design and disruptive new business models.?From a purely monetary perspective:

• The Ellen MacArthur Foundation (EMF) indicates the circular economy is worth 1.8 trillion euros in Europe alone by 2030.
• Accenture's research shows an additional economic output of 4.5 trillion dollars in the USA by 2030.
• And according to World Economic Forum, a global materials savings of $700 billion/annum results from circular opportunities globally (recurrent 1.1% of 2010 GDP).

Tack on the potential fines for environmental, legislative non-compliance and higher insurance premiums, and quickly the financial incentive for building owners and large asset portfolio managers becomes obvious.??Not only that, many firms ?are already partially on the path to greater sustainability and digital transformation in a piecemeal fashion, but require a re-focused strategy, or pivot, to deliver hugely impactful outcomes.?

The Linear Economy

Much of our economy and methods for creating economic value across industries follows a linear path;?we extract minerals and virgin materials, process them into products or buildings, then we discard them, sometimes within minutes of use (bottled water) and other times after decades (such as a building, machinery).?This is the outdated traditional Linear Economy - there's no designed-in plan for used-once materials.???

It’s a straight shot to disposal where valuable, hard to extract, or cheap abundant?materials/ clothing are all treated as rubbish and burned, landfilled and because of the huge quantities, recycle rates vary by product (with plastics at 9%).?The prevailing name for these used-once materials is “waste” and is now regarded as the result of poor early design decisions, and in many cases, inadequate anticipation of externalities with the polluting organisation not being responsible for the resulting repercussions.

The Circular Economy

The circular economy is a different way to look at creating economic value ?–?anything that is created is done so with the idea that “waste” is a worst-case outcome.??Think about products that can be remade from the same initial product???A new jacket or car can be made from other jackets or cars because the first iteration was designed to be collected and re-used again and again.?Or a modular building that can be remade and adapted into different configurations or even moved when requirements change???That is the end of waste and pollution and the beginning of innovation and creativity in design, process, cross-industry collaboration and industrial symbiosis.?The CE process is mapped out as cascades and loops illustrated below.????

This is an excellent explainer video from the EMF.?

Language and Terminology

The lexicon of the circular economy (below) invites a different discourse and action than ESG or Sustainability terms:??

Two Case Studies:?

The Unsustainable Reality of A Low-Tech Design Process Vs. Modern Methods of Construction

Let’s review the AEC's current linear throughput of take-make-dispose against the possible strategies, changes and technologies required to reconfigure it for a sustainable, high-performance, profitable business framework.???

The examples are a landmarked building (confidential) that was gutted internally leaving the main external structure and supports intact and fully rebuilt as a luxury hotel using traditional construction methods and 2D CAD drawings, etc.???The second example is a new build in Brooklyn utilizing 3D modelling, BIM, offsite, prefabricated modern methods of construction

Traditionally, buildings are designed and constructed in silos that start at the owner level and continues through to design, engineering, procurement, construction and finally operations. The nature of design bid-build also contributes to silos and teams that move rapidly from project to project.??In many cases, there’s less?attention paid ?to the operations, maintenance and longevity of the building (where 80% of the cost lies). Unlike natural systems where complex systems work together in coherence with constant dynamic feedback (much like digital twin dynamism), there’s sometimes a lack of interactive information (depending on technology and skill levels)?or looking at a structure as a whole by all the stakeholders within a project. ?In the UK, BIM was mandated in 2016 on all public projects over ￡5 million to alleviate some of these issues.??

Building 1 - NYC:?Traditional Methods- Data Silos, Fragmented Process and Mobile Teams?

The redesign was done in traditional 2D CAD by design teams and the project included owner’s reps onsite (work on behalf of the owners), the MEP and structural teams, and a vast number of tradesmen and women (non-union) working under the construction team’s umbrella.

Material Footprint:?Embodied Carbon, Energy, New Building Materials

A uniquely custom project due to its landmark status resulted in a large material footprint (almost inadvertently) owing to specified natural materials selected by ownership and interior design teams from global suppliers.?And further exacerbated by a lack of technology such as BIM and simulations that would have enhanced the availability of dynamic data on digital devices in the field, improving scheduling and sequencing with better coordination and collaboration, etc. ?and resulted in major delivery and cost overruns with hundreds of change orders.

For instance, in an interview with the construction team.

“For four upscale suites (approximately 2500sq feet) - hardwood floors were sourced from the Amazon, Brazil. They were first shipped to the UK for cutting and partial staining, then shipped to Canada for finishing, and then to New York. In addition, due to the circuitous manufacture, they required expensive expedited shipping to arrive on schedule”

“Lobby stone – all sourced from Italy. It arrived as blocks, which were further cut into slabs in Astoria, NY, the slabs had to be book-matched, creating enormous wastage of costly resources, and cut even further as the stone has natural imperfections. More stone had to be ordered to complete the job”

“Bedroom fixtures, fittings and equipment – all custom for 330 rooms. As design wasn’t fully finalised, the fitted furniture was ordered from China, and all the wainscot on either side of the built-in bed was ordered a foot wider. In an old building, every room had between 1” and 8” variance. And as the bed had to be perfectly centered – the wainscot had to be cut on both sides on site”

“Floor self-levelling cement – The construction team recommended self-levelling floor cement before any walls were constructed and each floor was an open space. The cost was higher so the decision was not to do so, with the strategy the carpet would hide all floor imperfections in the old terracotta flooring. After the walls were up and rooms built, the carpet didn’t camouflage the issue each room was individually levelled, delaying the project, and creating double the work”

“Owners and owner’s reps know about finance, not well versed with building construction”

On the demolition:

“… And not being a LEED building, there was no demolition audit performed”

?(Source: Author interview with construction team)

Material Footprint:?Construction Demolition and Waste ?

Not only did the new build generate a large carbon and energy?footprint, ?but so did the demolition.?Construction demolition waste and staff garbage was estimated in the range of a thousand trucks (approximately three?trucks per day for the first three months, tapering off to two trucks per day and finally one every other day) during the three-year project.

The chart below illustrates the materials discarded throughout the project, expressed in circular economy terms.?

Under the Sheetrock and Pretty Tile - Valuable Materials Without a Future Plan

In a CE future, buildings would have a disassembly plan and all these materials (and embodied carbon, energy, and human labor) would be used and re-used again and again in the AEC sector at a higher level than backfill.?And collaborations between sectors and industrial symbiosis would reuse the rest.?The challenge in a buildings-as-material-banks scenario is data and transparency to locate materials and products, as well as their material composition and state of remaining life and a bridge to the manufacturer or take-back systems.

And, perhaps more challenging is how do we deliver dynamic availability of information over decades to teams that will change constantly? ??In the European Union there are the beginnings of these initiatives (Madaster, Excess Materials Exchange), but scale is required. ??

Magnified across cities and towns globally, the challenges building owners, designers and construction teams face is creating sustainable buildings with a whole systems design with built-in data longevity and availability of information over several decades for future generations.?

Decoupling growth from natural resources will need new controls over what we already have in our building portfolios to combat carbon, GHGs, rising sea levels and climate change by making fuller use of existing assets.????

(Photos by August Nazareth at a new build construction site, NYC)

Building 2 – Brooklyn:??Modern Methods of Construction - Offsite, Modularity, Standardisation

In 2015/16, 461 Dean Street, a 32-story building was?completed in Brooklyn, NY with the distinction of being the world’s tallest modular building at the time (that title now goes to 10 Degrees in Croydon, England at 44 stories). While it wasn’t designed or constructed specifically to follow CE concepts of pure materials, cascades and loops, it comes close to whole system design,?disassembly and modularity possibilities, and could well be the future of buildings. According to Autodesk’s?Phil Bernstein, prefab buildings have been on the radar for a long time, but recent technologies like 3D modelling, laser scanning, and building techniques are making it possible .?

Modular Construction – 461 Dean Street, Brooklyn

461 Dean Street - Interior

461 Pacific Park was designed by Shop Architects , a firm that employs many modern technologies and methodologies in architecture, virtual design construction, laser scanning, and prefabrication. As a case study it employs many of the circular economy principles without consciously attributing it to CE. It’s a collaboration between the developer, architects, the community and the trades men and women on the job and an example of social and natural capital in an innovative modern design and construction scenario, and my post-construction application of a CE lens.

1. Activate local community: The developer Forest City Ratner (FCR) worked to get buy-in to build a large development including the Barclays Center (Nets’ stadium) in Brooklyn. In return, FCR promised them jobs, economic development?and 50% affordable housing. They used the slogan “Jobs, Housing, and Hoops”.

2. Design and Create Building Blocks: After the downturn in 2008/9 and recurring issues with construction, FCR tried an innovative approach to getting the project on track: A new company, FullStackModular , to oversee construction using prefab modules.

3. Activate Local Community: The modules would be assembled locally at the Brooklyn Navy Yard in a massive warehouse where non-jurisdictional union workers would assemble about 930 modules.?

?“One of the biggest hurdles with prefab isn't just structural integrity or waterproofing, but the workers themselves: Prefab has long been perceived as a way for developers to avoid paying construction workers and, thus, to bypass unions altogether. So one of FCR's biggest successes has actually been a legal one: The formation of a new, non-jurisdictional "Modular Division," made up of union carpenters, iron workers, painters, plumbers, electricians, and more. It's this agreement that makes it possible to use 100 percent union labor at the Navy Yard site, where small teams from each trade work on assembling each module simultaneously.” (Kelsey CampbellDollaghan and Nick Stango |?

4. Map Systems for one Product: All the modules start off as steel boxes and become apartments in less than a week. The drywall, doors windows and lighting fixtures are all done in the factory in a choreographed schedule. Bathrooms are fitted by bathroom teams, kitchens another. All the materials needed are on hand to keep production going.

5. Re-organise and streamline technical and biological material flows: Two activities happen at the same time, the building components are assembled and built in the factory, the foundation work continues on site. Materials are being brought to the site with the guarantee they’ll fit the first time, unlike in the linear version, reducing waste.

6. Transfer business model solutions: The factory has completed its project and is ready for more business according to their website. Touting delivery reduction times of 50% over regular construction with efficient repeatable processes and safer workers who are always on the ground floor. And 48% fewer truck deliveries for the community as well as a 70% reduction on onsite workers.?

7.?Waste reduction and greater sustainability:?Repetitive component process enables cost certainty, faster turnaround to revenue generation, and reduced waste (under 5%).

Designed for Manufacture and Assembly (DfMA) – Factory

(Source: Gizmodo )?

For Case Studies In the Built Environment Using the EMF's ReSOLVE Circular Framework - Click Here

Future Sustainable Outcomes and Possibilities – Good for People, Planet and Business

This type of building approach offers a great framework for achieving full circularity in?next generation buildings by working with like-minded organisations, suppliers and vendors to tweak business models.? Circl Pavilion in the Netherlands - an example of cirularity in action in built environment.

SCREW, BOLT, CLICK, CLAMP

The construction firm also faced stringent requirements. If a building has to be easy to disassemble, then 'wet' bonding agents like glue, kit and polyurethane foam are a no-no. Instead, everything has to be screwed, bolted, clicked or clamped together wherever possible. The Making of Circl

Take-Back (!) Those Used-Once Materials

Other circular examples in use are product-service solutions for the kitchens, bathrooms and appliances that future-proof new extended producer responsibility (EPR) measures.? Leasing and take-back programs, forge ?new alliances, bringing the performance and circular economy to scale within the building industry. ?

Business model examples explore many options from re-use, remanufacture to leasing and material reductions for appliances such as Bundles in the Netherlands, carpet take-back solutions (Interface , Desso ), or Light as a service (Philips ), etc.??

(Slide Credits: Re?is Dando, ReValueSystems.com , and Tom Snow, DesignContexts.org )

As more manufacturers offer leasing and product-service solutions with the intent of re-capturing and remanufacturing their used-once materials and goods for the long haul. Design of these goods will become modular, standardised, of better quality and with parts and assemblies/ components re-usable thus preserving embodied carbon and energy, with new innovations in reverse logistics, pooling and dissemination.

Increased Brand Equity and Consumer Loyalty

Brand and longevity/ stickiness of customer relationships will begin to span decades, not just a few years, providing valuable ongoing continuous product feedback.?These relationships and continuous data can be maintained by digital twins created at the design stage through to construction and lifetime operational updates, reducing and impacting buildings’ overall carbon and energy footprint through the supply chain.?

As pilot projects continue with success and include manufacturers of almost all building asset types, it’s possible to create Buildings-as-a-Service.?This would achieve ever tighter loops and cascades within the building industry and industrial ecology/symbiosis and urban mining between, and across sectors.?The by-products of one business becomes feedstock for another.?Additionally, systems for water collection would answer the eternal question – why are we using fresh clean water to flush toilets when half the world cannot access clean water??Especially since there are innovative technologies to change this already in existence.

?Other Intervention points:?

1. Like 461 Dean, all new buildings would be digitally designed in 3D first - Revit/BIM and visualized in virtual design construction (VDC) first, to eliminate obstructions and ‘clashes'.?Enormous amounts of people time, construction, carbon, energy and materials waste would be eliminated leading to greater sustainability and profit.???And more importantly, increase the attractiveness of the industry to millennials and gen. Z who are opting into other career paths instead of apprenticing to the “low-tech” construction trades.

1. Buildings would be designed with pure (unmixed) materials and require an ingredients or material passport (perhaps utilizing Blockchain or RFID to track their material footprint) enabling future use planning, useful life stages and re-certification.
2. Tracking, tracing and data accessibility is critical to enabling a circular economy; working through dynamic digital twins is a key to real-time inventory control, adaptation and modification data, vendor and take-back information and a host of other data that feeds into facilities management, vendor and other enterprise resource systems.??
3. More information and feedback loops would be available for input to COBie, NBIMS v3 (or other systems) – architects and other design professional would explain to owners/employers why distinct levels of development (LOD 400-500) are needed to create an active digital twin and provide a cost benefit analysis.
4. Digital twins would be provided to building owners/operators (as a single source of truth), instead of receiving a box of equipment manuals at the end of the project;??for continuous updates powered by internet of things, sensors and artificial intelligence, etc.??
5. All lighting, plumbing, equipment like HVAC, would always belong to the manufacturer for remanufacturing, disassembly and other closed loop strategies for re-use and cross sector usage enabling a circular economy. ?Digital twins make the transfer and delivery of knowledge, meta-data, value chain and supply chain information seamless.??

What Are Some Current Challenges???

1. Employee pushback and the reluctance to learn new technologies unless mandated
2. The initial expense, time and effort is sometimes considerable
3. Lack of expertise in digital strategy and transformation
4. Organisational structure and culture
5. Insufficient allocation of budgets and resources
6. BREEAM, LEED, etc. provide sustainability awareness but only to those who take the certification
7. X-Life and secondary life material strategies requires innovative approaches to material selection and usage.?Fast paced design teams must make decisions quickly and sustainable options aren’t easily identifiable. ?
8. Material passports are a new concept
9. Design for disassembly is a new concept

10. Building owners/operators have insufficient knowledge about technologies or reject upfront costs only to incur higher unplanned expenditures that escalate mid-project, delaying time-to-market with costs overruns, impacting profits.

11. Piecemeal efforts are made instead of incorporating a full stack of enabling technologies and ability of 3D modelling to interface with the circular economy and building management systems (BMS), the BIM to Facilities Management journey is under-utilised. It is critical the industry understand this better.?

(Photo by?Tima Miroshnichenko ?from?Pexels )

“Businesses throw away hundreds of billions worth of valuable materials because they are not designed for recovery. What is gained on the front end through convenient bonding is lost on the back end through destructive mixing of materials that degrades their quality” (Mulhall and Braungart 2013: 76)

Conclusion

In conclusion, the current linear approach of take-make-dispose from design through operations ?has been wasteful at every stage for decades. However, there appears to be positive changes that speak to a transition in how designing and building is approached from an innovation and policy standpoint. Many countries have begun to mandate various versions of BIM to mitigate waste and increase efficiency in maintenance and operations.?It is still optional in the US, except for Wisconsin publicly funded projects.??In April 2016, the UK government mandated Pas 1192:2 - all tax-funded projects over 5M pounds must be designed using BIM, affording greater transparency and collaboration, utilising a common data environment for a single source of truth by all stakeholders. It has resulted in increased adoption of BIM and 3D modelling, albeit reluctantly from architects. ?

In March 2021, the new London Plan’s vision for net-zero carbon and circular economy introduced two Sustainable Infrastructure Policies pertaining to major development planning.?

• Policy S12:?Minimising greenhouse gas emissions – requiring whole lifecycle carbon (WLC) assessment/calculations be made and actions to reduce emissions be demonstrated.
• Policy SI7:???Reducing Waste and Supporting the Circular Economy – goals are to move away from a linear construction process – take-make-dispose - to a more circular one – materials are retained in use at their highest value (not downcycled) for as long as possible, and only then are reused or recycled, retaining a minimum of residual waste.

These types of policies and other legislation provide signposting and learning from other countries further along the circular economy spectrum using enablers like BIM, 3D modelling, simulation, etc. that benefit firms in many other respects as well.?These technologies support the creation of digital twins which in return will support the CE transition, greater sustainability and business growth.?

With Singapore’s digital twin from Dassault Systemes , (Virtual Singapore ) ?and the UK’s National Twin initiative creating opportunities for all property owners, utilities, etc.?to provide a single-source-of-truth and increase productivity, test-bedding capability, transparency and efficiency of data and up-to-date knowledge, organisations lagging in the appropriate digital transformation are unwise and irrational. ??Particularly when we compare AEC to manufacturing's technology adoption and the competition for skilled teams.

AEC has been a slow-moving sector but the legislation and policies for achieving reductions in carbon,?GHGs?and materials forces a speed and trajectory into new and existing interoperable and interconnected technologies in the design to operations/facilities management and whole life spectrum. The benefits to owner's embracing the right technologies for long term operational sustainability are many. Imagine the value of a building that has a digital twin, fully updated throughout every adaptation iteration, changing supplier information, regulatory updates, retrofits, equipment life status, maintenance records, fire and safety records, sensor data, etc. and equipped with artificial intelligance to query and find anything from this single-source-of-truth? What is the financial value in cost savings or for a potential buyer or new operator? Along with the circular economy, digital twins, and modular construction, this is where the next big advancements are likely to be made that truly impact the entire built environmentand mega-trends of sustainability and climate change.?

(Above Image Source: Wired.com, Video: Dassault Systemes)

Resources:

https://nla.london/projects/ten-degrees

https://developcroydon.com/last-module-arrives-to-complete-worlds-tallest-modular-residential-building/

https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2020/10/21/2111627/0/en/Global-Construction-Materials-Market-to-Reach-1-5-Trillion-by-2027.html

https://www.ellenmacarthurfoundation.org/circular-economy/concept/schools-of-thought

https://www.gizmodo.in/design/Inside-theBrooklyn-Super-Factory-Building-Americas-Tallest-Tower/articleshow/24614780.cms

https://2015.ctbuh.org/tours/technical-tours/461-dean-street-factory-tour/

https://skyscrapercenter.com/building/461-dean-street/14897

https://redshift.autodesk.com/future-of-construction/

https://www.autodesk.co.uk/products

https://www.nrf.gov.sg/programmes/virtual-singapore

https://circl.nl/themakingof/en/

Dassault Systemes/ Wired.com ?– Digital Twin – Virtual Singapore

https://www.cdbb.cam.ac.uk/what-we-do/national-digital-twin-programme

Towards Circular Economy in the Household Appliance Industry: An Overview of Cases

resources-09-00128-v2 (1).pdf

Mulhall, D. and Braungart, M. (2013) Cradle-to-Cradle: From recycling building components to upcycling buildings. Adapting to accelerating building cycles, Chapter 6. In Webster, K., Blériot, J. and Johnson, C. (editors) A New Dynamic: Effective Business in a Circular Economy. Cowes: Ellen MacArthur Foundation.?

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