Circular economy: How digitization helps to reuse building materials
How can everyday tools like cell phones help raise awareness of circular building? Using Extended Reality (XR), discover where building materials exist in the city of Zurich that can be reused and how digitization can help build in a more environmentally friendly way.
The focus of circular construction is on closing building material loops through reuse, repair, renovation, upcycling or recycling instead of the traditional “produce – consume – dispose” process. Closed-loop building takes into account from the very beginning of the planning process how to maximize the lifetime and reusability of materials or even entire buildings.
Our exhibition features a model of the city of Zurich and invites visitors to use their mobile devices to visualize material information in the model using a web-based augmented reality (AR) application. Physical bars are also on display – with links to a WebAR material passport. A material passport identifies the quality, origin and location of materials in a building and assesses opportunities for reuse and recycling in the spirit of the circular economy.
Visualizing building material information at different scales raises awareness of available local resources and is intended to improve our access to information for construction. AR will be used as a tool to view our city’s material passports and the materials they contain. Interaction with this exhibit will lead users to question when digital tools are used in construction processes and how increased digitization and access to information could facilitate a circular economy.
