CIRCuIT partners in the Helsinki Region had a busy autumn engaging with key actors in the built environment. After the first annual local stakeholder event on September 9th, the project group put their efforts into organizing the first annual urban decision maker forum (UDMF). The aim of the UDMF was to present CIRCuIT and highlight the importance of flexibility in construction to planners, architects and developers in Vantaa. One important goal was also to get insights on the principles and experiences of flexible construction in the Helsinki Region.
Henna Teerihalme from HSY gave the opening speech and welcomed the participants to the UDMF. This was followed by a presentation by Mario Kolkwitz from TAU of a study which maps out buildings that have the potential to be transformed in Vantaa city. The purpose of the study was to create an awareness for the potential of the existing material stock and how that potential is lost through demolition.
Jyrki Tarpio, a postdoctoral researcher at TAU also gave a presentation on flexibility in housing which introduced a four-level hierarchy model on flexibility. This was followed by Jukka Lahdensivu’ from Ramboll’s presentation on Design for Disassembly. And finally Tarpio gave another presentation on the interview results from Finland and Denmark on the potential of transforming apartment buildings by moving their inner walls.
A discussion session followed each of the presentations. And a conclusion was reached that multifunctionality and transformability are good targets for sustainable construction in addition to targets on carbon emissions and usage of natural resources.
On November 10th, HSY organized a workshop on circular construction indicators. Around 20 attendees, mainly from different public organisations such as the city of Vantaa, the city of Helsinki, the Ministry of Environment and research organisations such as the Finnish Environment Institute discussed how the indicators should be developed over the course of the CIRCuIT project. Most of the time was reserved for discussing the aspects of the suggested indicators and if they could be usable in Helsinki region or not.
During the workshop, Miro Board was tested as a workshop tool. Henna Teerihalme Project Manager at HSY said:
“Miro board was a very positive experiment. During the workshop, we got positive feedback for using it. Also, it proved to be a good way of documenting all the information shared at an online workshop.”
Both events got good responses from participants and the indicator workshop lead to more meetings with stakeholders who are keen to explore them further.
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