Digitizing a Circular Future: Design for Rehabilitation and Reuse

By 2030, Norway must reduce CO2-emissions by 55% compared with the reference year of 1990. The current rehabilitation rate in Norway is between 1 and 1.4% of the total building stock, even though research shows that upgrading existing conditions is the fastest way to reduce a buildings footprint on the climate. In a step to reduce emissions, new Norwegian legislation also specifies that all buildings that are planned to be demolished must undergo a reuse mapping assessment. This has fueled a wave of innovation in the AEC sector to meet these governmental demands and promote rehabilitation as the way forward. Nordic Office of Architecture, in collaboration with Tvinn Solutions, is exploring how technology can contribute to the optimalization of rehabilitation project workflows. Several in-house case studies were used to help understand the biggest risks and frustrations associated with rehabilitation projects, develop innovative solutions for minimalizing risk, and to measure results when architects held the ability to incorporate reused elements directly in their native design environment. These solutions were focused around having digitalized the necessary building information early in the design process, semi-automatizing the modelling and data management of the existing conditions, digital workflows for the integration of donor and closed market reuse and on the reduction of construction waste through design.