Today in NW-Europe, only 1% of building elements are reused following their first application. Although a large number of elements are technically reusable, they end up being recycled by crushing or melting, or disposed. The result is a high environmental impact and a net loss of economic value.
This project aims to increase by +50%, the amount of reclaimed building elements being circulated on its territory by 2032.
Focusing on the northern half of France, Belgium and the UK, the project also covers, with a lesser intensity, the Netherlands, Ireland, the rest of France and Luxembourg. This area houses thousands of SMEs specialised in the reclamation and supply of reusable building elements. Despite their obvious potential for the circular economy, these operators face significant challenges: visibility, access to important projects and integration in contemporary building practices. Today, the flow of recirculated goods stagnate and may even decrease due to a lack of structured efforts.
To respond appropriately to these challenges, the project sets up an international partnership involving specialised organisations, trade associations, research centres, an architecture school and public administrations. It is rooted in earlier initiatives that were successfully initiated, on a local level.
The project will deliver:
These tools will be tested and promoted through 36 pilot operations taking place in large (de)construction projects, whereby more than 360 tons of elements will be reused. Effective communication efforts towards the stakeholders of the construction industry (including public authorities) will facilitate a smooth integration of these outputs into field practices and policies.
Old Rectory Studio Ashford Road
Canterbury
CT4 7HS
United Kingdom
34-42 Rue du Lombard
Brussels
1000
Belgium
42-44 Rue du Lombard
Brussels
1000
Belgium
4 avenue Jean Jaures
Champs sur Marne
77420
France
86C/3000 Avenue du Port
Brussels
1000
Belgium
Mithras House Lewes Road
Brigthton
BN24AT
United Kingdom
60 Boulevard de la Villette
Paris
75020
France
58 rue Prévinaire
Anderlecht
1070
Belgium
Lead partner
| Organisation | Address | Website | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rotor |
58 rue Prévinaire Anderlecht 1070 Belgium |
michaelghyoot@rotordb.org | www.rotordb.org |
| Name | Contact Name | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Salvo Ltd | Thornton Kay | thornton.kay@salvo.co.uk | United Kingdom |
| Construction Confederation | Lara Pérez Duenas | lara.perezduenas@confederationconstruction.be | Belgium |
| Belgian Building Research Institute | Jeroen | jeroen.vrijders@bbri.be | Belgium |
| Scientific and technical Center for Building | Sylvain Laurenceau | sylvain.laurenceau@cstb.fr | France |
| Brussels Environment | Corinne Bernair | cbernair@environnement.brussels | Belgium |
| University of Brighton | Duncan Baker-Brown | D.Baker-brown@brighton.ac.uk | United Kingdom |
| Bellastock | Mathilde Billet | mathilde.billet@bellastock.com | France |
Where to find reclamation dealers?
Reclamation dealers in Belgium, France & the Nederlands + inspiring documents
Go to Opalis
Where to find reclamation dealers?
Reclamation dealers in the UK
Go to Salvo Directory
Where to find reclamation dealers?
Instagram account with daily pictures of reclamation dealers across NW Europe
Go to Instagram accountThe FCRBE project has published its latest tool to promote the reuse of building materials. Share this video around you and encourage the spread of reuse of building materials ! Read More
Salvo has released its latest Newsletter with a very good report of their activities in FCRBE project for the last six months. Read More
This interesting article published on 9 February by Salvo mentions the works carried out by FCRBE project and quotes the recent articles issued in UK media on the importance of circular architecture. Read More
An Instagram account to enhance the visibility of construction materials resellers Read More
FCRBE has published its "guide for facilitating the integration of reclaimed building materials in large-scale projects and public tenders". Read More
FCRBE Project has published a new deliverable that offers guidelines on conducting a reclamation audit. A reclamation audit is an operation carried out in buildings scheduled for partial or total demolition. It aims at identifying the building materials and products presenting a high reuse potential. This audit results in a ‘reclamation inventory’, listing the identified reusable building elements. The resulting inventories present information on the materials' and products' characteristics such as dimensions, quantities, conditions, environmental impact, technical characteristics, disassembly recommendations, etc. This manual presents a method on how to conduct these audits. Read More
Due to the uncertainty around the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak, the School of Re-construction (SoR-c) summer school will be postponed until summer 2021. Read More
The University of Brighton’s School of Architecture and Design will be hosting a five-day International Summer School from 17-21 August 2020. Aimed at students from the worlds of design, architecture, construction and engineering, the School of Re-construction (Sor-c) will demonstrate ways to re-use materials from local construction sites. Read More
FCRBE has published the report "Review of existing pre-demolition tools, policies, resources for identifying, quantifying and organizing the reclamation of reusable elements.“ The report collects examples and illustrations coming from different professional practices in which the assessment of the reuse potential in existing buildings plays an important role or is supported. Read More
On 20 august, FCRBE celebrated a working session for the development of an open source and accessible method for the audit of reusable elements in a building. This gave us the opportunity to discover Actlab, Bellastock’s project in L'Île-Saint-Denis close to Paris. Read More
Rotor is a research group, design studio and consultancy. It aims at making the reuse of components an accessible option for building professionals. Rotor created and manages Opalis.be, a local online directory of reuse operators. In 2015, the work of Rotor was awarded the Global Award for Sustainable Architecture under the patronage of UNESCO. Rotor recently launched the spin-off RotorDC, an innovative reclamation activity focussing on interior finishings from post-war buildings.
Bellastock is an experimental architecture organisation whose work focuses on the valorization of places and their material resources. Bellastock has experience with the reuse of building elements through demonstrative projects and national and European research programs. This has allowed them to provide technical assistance in more than 50 architectural projects.
BE is the public administration responsible for environment and energy in the Brussels Region. BE’s main mission is to survey the quality of air, water, soil, waste, noise and nature. BE is also responsible for defining strategic management plans for improving quality in above-mentioned fields and for launching awareness campaigns for citizens. Since 2008, BE has financed and coordinated the key projects that helped make Brussels a leader in the field of construction material reuse.
The University of Brighton (UoB) is a community of 21,000 students and 2,800 staff based on five campuses in the coastal cities/towns of Brighton. The UoB possesses a diverse and vibrant research community of over 400 research staff and 300 research students. The Research Excellence Framework (REF) 2014 ranked us 27 out of 128 universities for our world-leading research impact.
For more than 25 years, Salvo has been a key organisation for the development of the reuse sector, primarily in the UK. Salvo carries out several activities including: networking information and advising on the trade of reclaimed construction elements (e.g. via SalvoWEB and architectural salvage fairs); providing consultancy to the construction sector and public authorities on reuse practices; conducting pre-demolition audits; assisting with materials procurement; surveying the sector.
The Construction Confederation is the main business organisation, social partner and representative body of the construction industry in Belgium. More than 15000 contractors have joined the Construction Confederation, from craftsmen to global players, carrying out all forms of building and civil engineering activities. The Confederation informs, supports, represents and promotes Belgian contractors at the local, national and international levels.
It has three regional entities for the three Belgian regions:
The statutory members of the BBRI include more than 90,000 Belgian construction companies, mostly SMEs. The BBRI’s primary business involves performing scientific and technical research for the benefit of its members; supplying technical information, assistance and advice to its members; contributing to the general innovation and development in the construction sector by performing research upon the request of the industry and the authorities.
CSTB is the French national organisation providing research and innovation, consultancy, testing, training and certification services in the construction industry. The mission of the CSTB is to ensure the quality and safety of buildings, and to support innovation. The CSTB focuses on four key activities: research and consulting, assessment, certification and dissemination of knowledge. Its field of expertise covers construction products, buildings, and their integration into cities.
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Thank you to everyone who has made an application to the digital School School of Re-construction Summer School. We have had a great response and are looking forward to working with some great students. Applicants who have been selected to join the Summer School will be contacted on 14th May. They will be sent a link to the registration website. Before completing the Summer School registration applicants need to provide evidence of registration or offer of a place in the year 2020/21 (or 2019/20 if they applied last year) at a recognised university, as per the summer school Terms and Conditions. This evidence (transcript/certification/offer) must be sent to School-of-Re-Construction@brighton.ac.uk. The deadline for sending the documentation and completing registration is 31st May 2021.
The University of Brighton’s School of Architecture and Design are hosting a digital Summer School aimed at students from the worlds of design, architecture, construction and engineering. The digital School of Re-construction (SoR-c) will demonstrate ways to re-use materials and elements from the built environment.
Our team at the University of Brighton includes Anthony Roberts, Nick Gant, Dr Ryan Woodard, Siobhan O’Dowd and is led by senior lecturer and architect Duncan Baker-Brown best known for coordinating the building of the Brighton Waste House, “Europe’s first permanent building made of materials other people discarded”.
WHEN: 2-13 August 2021 (weekdays only)
WHERE: Online MS Teams/Zoom
LANGUAGE: English
DURATION: 2 weeks (40 hours over two weeks)
Application Deadline: 7 May 21
Registration Deadline: 31 May 21
From left to right: Duncan Baker-Brown, Antony Roberts, Nick Gant, Dr. Ryan Woodard, Siobhan O'Dowd.
We will be joined (online) by partners from across North-West Europe*, including re-use experts Rotor from Belgium, and Bellastock from France, who are deconstructing the 59-storey Montparnasse Tower in Paris.
The School of Re-construction is part of an EU ERDF €4.33million Interreg NWE project entitled, ‘Facilitating the Circulation of Reclaimed Building Elements’ (FCRBE) which runs from 2019 to 2022. It will deliver, among others:
This project responds to the worldwide declaration of Climate and Ecological Emergency, and locally to Brighton and Hove’s ambition to be Net Carbon Neutral by 2030.
*North-West Europe includes Ireland, United Kingdom, Belgium, Luxembourg, France, Germany, Switzerland and the Netherlands.
Students from different regions will work in teams with designers and makers to re-think and re-use, through the re-construction of disassembled materials to create a series of thought-provoking digital design interventions, that will prove that “there’s no such thing as waste, just stuff in the wrong place!”
Drawing on the partners and work of the Interreg FCRBE project the Summer School will include discussions and debates on topics relating to urban mining, resource mapping, deconstruction, re-use, and buildings as material banks.
Drawing from their immediate environment’s, each participant will survey a chosen artefact, room, or building with a view to digitally unpacking and deconstructing them. Each of the eight teams will create their own digital library; to be shared, interrogated, understood and re-imagined as a ‘new’ proposition.
Since the rise of modernity, design usually precedes construction. Consequently, designers generally develop their projects around standardized, stable and predictable construction products or they order specialised production of bespoke elements that will match their requirements. In essence, reclaimed products are the exact opposite of this: they are largely heterogeneous, unpredictable, and situated. In this sense, they question the habits of designers.
We will tackle this question by challenging each team to design and realise a small construction out of reclaimed elements in response to one of the workshop themes as detailed below.
These themes pose questions and provide a particular ‘lens’ for re-structuring elements that are usually discarded or re-worked. Each team will have an array of digitally reclaimed elements sourced from across the Interreg FCRBE region to choose and experiment with.
All these realisations are small living laboratories that will allow you to have direct experience with these challenges. The two-week-long workshop will culminate in a carefully curated online exhibition of these experimental design interventions.
The following themes should be read as specific ‘lenses’ through which participants will look at their particular ‘libraries of elements’. Please note that they might be slightly adapted depending on what will have been surveyed and collected by each of the teams taking part.
Theme 1 THE RAW:
The aim of re-use that will be explored, is how to effect a new condition by NOT altering, or ‘re-cooking’, the materials gained by reclamation. By working with the dismantled elements in their ‘raw’, or unaltered form – what are the possibilities of reconfiguring them into new, spatial and material combinations?
Theme 2 THE ‘USELESS’:
Materials deemed ‘useless’ are often cheap, can be found in abundance and as a result, are often discarded as not worthy of consideration. How can we make these rejected elements useful and desirable for construction?
Theme 3 THE BY-PRODUCT:
Materials that exist as a by-product of conventional modes of production can often be overlooked and ignored. How can they become one of the re-fashioned and delivered as a newly envisioned focus that supports the act of re-use?
Theme 4 THE HYBRID:
Systems and materials are often standardised and configured in conflicting or unaccommodating arrays of sizes and shapes, which generates more waste. How can they be combined to create new, workable relationships through the crude use of montage?
Theme 5 THE ‘OFF-CUT’:
The off-cut is notoriously known for being ‘not quite long enough’. By only utilising these awkward materials the question again arises, how can these usually discarded elements be re-examined and re-combined to form workable structures and envelopes that might not conform to the notion of the standard?
The Summer School will run between the 2 and 13 August 2021. The Summer School will be run as a digital online event. If you are selected you will be sent the registration details.
The deadline for registration is 31st May 2021. If you are selected we will send you a link to register your confirmation that you wish to enrol.
There is no cost for this digital event.
In addition to confirming your availability to attend all sessions you will also need to provide evidence that:
Once you have registered we will keep you informed about Summer School, and ensure access to the materials and online programme.
Yes, the Summer School will be conducted in English therefore applicants will need to be fluent in English to take part. We will assess your written application for proficiency in English.
For any other questions not covered here please contact us at School-of-Re-construction@brighton.ac.uk
As part of the FCRBE project, Bellastock is organising and hosting the DEPOT LIVE SHOW(S), a two-week-long online event aimed at gathering together reclaimed materials dealers and other project stakeholders such as contractors, building owners, architects, in order to focus and exchange on the challenges of reuse in the construction sector.
From May 10th to 26th, three sessions dedicated to presentations, debates, exchanges and meetings will take place in order to showcase reclaimed materials businesses across northwestern Europe, highlighting the reclamation activity and fostering project opportunities.
Save the dates :
WHEN: from May 10th to 26th
WHERE: Online
LANGUAGE: English/French
DURATION: 2 weeks
REGISTRATION DEADLINE: May 10th
EMAIL: depotlive-fcrbe@bellastock.com
FOLLOW: Instagram / Linkedin / Youtube
FACEBOOK EVENTS:
PROMOTE: A3 Poster EN - A3 Poster FR
Duration : 1h30
Location : Online (link to come)
Audience : Reclamation dealers, contractors, building owners, architects, other professionals and students in the fields of construction
Language : English / French subtitled replay
The Depot Live Show(s) opening conference will aim to present the context of the event, namely the FCRBE project and the ongoing study of reclaimed materials businesses across northwestern Europe.
A “historical reminder” on the question of reuse expertise will be recounted, via the approaches of Rotor, Bellastock and Salvo in their countries over the last 15 years, and will lead to the formation of this group of partners for the FCRBE project and the common objectives set within a European scope.
This introduction will bring us to the presentation of the Depot Live Show(s) and its objectives, with a presentation of the detailed program and announcement of the next meeting sessions.
Speakers : Rotor, Bellastock, Salvo
Duration : 2 weeks, daily publications
Location : Social media (@1500reuse)
Audience : Reclamation dealers, contractors, building owners, architects, other professionals and students in the fields of construction
Language : FR / EN / DE
Two weeks long, @1500reuse Instagram page will be taken over and named for the event @DepotLive_fcrbe and will be animated with a daily series of portraits and interviews of reclaimed materials businesses across NWE. Forecasting the circulation of reused building elements calls for visibility and a link between supply and demand, between resellers, contractors and project owners. This animated flow of reclamation dealers portraits aims to highlight their activity, materials, stocks, and maybe reveal project opportunities including local reclaimed materials ressources.
Speakers :
150+ businesses of the reclamation sector in NWE
Duration : 1h30
Location : Online + Paris
Audience : Reclamation dealers, contractors, building owners, architects, other professionals and students in the fields of construction
Language : French / EN subtitled replay
The final collective roundtable will conclude this first Depot Live Show(s) through a public and collective restitution roundtable by bringing together the actors just mentioned to discuss the subjects, the challenges and issues, the levers to increase the circulation of reclaimed building elements in NWE in a bigger picture and prospective vision of circular economy enabled by the FCRBE project.
The roundtable will gather together reclamation dealers, project owners, contractors, architects, and will be animated by David Abittan from Tema Prod, with the participation of Rotor and Bellastock.
This closing session will be an opportunity to announce the continuation of the FCRBE project for 2 more years, and therefore a second Depot Live Show (s) which will show the evolution of the context and the new objectives.
As a conclusion it will be the opportunity to inaugurate the Mobile Exhibition designed as part of FCRBE project, that will be exposed for three weeks in Paris.
The closing conference will be organised in a hybrid format, face-to-face for stakeholders (and the public if sanitary conditions allow), and live broadcast for all participants, therefore accessible from anywhere and with free registration, dedicated to an audience as varied as it is numerous to feed a debate which will be, we hope, of as yet unprecedented richness.
Speakers :
David Abittan, Tema Prod
Reclaimers, architects, contractors, project owners
Rotor, Bellastock
More information to come
