A Novel Design Approach for Enhancing Material Circularity in Urban Development

The demand of raw materials has increased significantly over the past decades, and the pressure on resources is expected to continue in the next years due to the global demographic growth, causing serious threats to the economic, social, and ecological equilibrium. The construction sector is the main driver of material demand, with a major flow concentrated towards cities. The transition of the built environment to the circular economy is a key factor in achieving a resource-effective society. However, the full shift to a circular economy model is a great challenge that needs a revised approach to urban planning and building design. As the building industry is expected to remain the first contributor to resource depletion in the future, a holistic approach to material selection should be included in the early-stage phase of a building project to support designers and contractors to identify and promote material circularity as well as city planners and developers to better manage the secondary resources available at municipal or regional scale. This paper aims to investigate existing knowledge on circular economy in the built environment, highlighting synergies and connections of circular design with material stock analysis and criticality assessment. The outcome of this work is the development of a design framework crossing data from building material stock for enhancing the circular design. The framework, supported by digital tools, aims to help the stakeholders to understand which option best pursues the objectives of resource efficiency, considering the design inputs and externalities.