Our current construction model is unsustainable. We rely heavily on resource-intensive materials like concrete and steel and demolish buildings without maximising material reuse. This linear approach is polluting our planet, depleting our resources, and contributing to the climate and biodiversity emergencies. With a growing population demanding more buildings, we urgently need to change course.
Timber is a very promising sustainable construction bio-material that absorbs carbon as it grows. However, timber alone is not the solution, we still need to find better ways to change how we build. We must shift from our current linear model of “take-make-dispose” to a circular solution, maximising material reuse. Reusing timber is crucial, because we also need to take care of our forests. To facilitate timber reuse, future buildings should be designed in such a way that they can be easily disassembled, and we keep record of their materials and components. However, to enable the reuse of the wood materials that are currently making up our existing buildings we need to have a good understanding of them and know how much is available. Some studies have use material flow analysis to show how the wood move through the system, from forests, to products, to their use and end-of-life. This is useful for knowing how the wood materials are used and how much is used and disposed of but gives no indication about the materials in our existing buildings.
Our work as part of the Work Package 1 of WOODCIRCLES, is focused on creating a picture of the stock of wood materials in our buildings at European level and at the three partner cities of the research project – Rotterdam, Turin and Tartu. Our goal is to understand how much wood materials we have in our existing buildings and the potential of reclaiming and using these materials for manufacturing new wood products with the right properties so that they can be used in construction instead of steel and concrete. Our methodology consists of a combination of methods for collecting data and estimating the quantities and qualities of wood. The collection of data is based on data from statistics, research, government and industry, as well as from surveys of buildings being demolished in our partner cities. The estimation of the quantities of wood is based on the type of building constructions. This is an ongoing project, and we are striving to achieve the highest accuracy possible, thinking that in the future our children will be able to use this data to design and construct the buildings they need, and at the same time have healthy forests to enjoy and a better environment than the one we have now.
Keywords: wood, timber, reclaimed, building stock, material stock analysis
Authors
Martha Godina
University of Cambridge, United Kingdom
Nilmini Dissanayake
University of Cambridge, United Kingdom
Antiopi Koronaki
University of Cambridge, United Kingdom
Michael H Ramage
University of Cambridge, United Kingdom
Darshil U Shah
University of Cambridge, United Kingdom
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