EXTENDING LIFECYCLES

TRANSFORMATION AND REFURBISHMENT

This image is a diagram of transforming and refurbishing buildings to extend building life and materials. The first image is of two parts of a building attached together. The next is the same building but looking slightly different and also extended.

The refurbishment and transformation of buildings can keep construction materials in use for longer, avoiding premature demolition. This focus area will deliver 12 demonstrations to facilitate the sustainable transformation of buildings through showcasing adaptive reuse and refurbishment principles.

Cities and key stakeholders will develop an evidence-based methodology to identify opportunities to extend the life cycle of obsolete but transformable buildings.

Identified cases will explore how universal, context-specific and site-specific circular design strategies and principles can be applied, replicated and scaled.

The last phase of this focus area will investigate standardised metrics and methods of evaluating the environmental (e.g. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), embodied energy and carbon), and social and economic impacts of design choices.

Extending lifecycles