Circular Economy and the Built Environment: Zelfbouw in Amsterdam. Addressing Resource Scarcity through Architecture

• Autores: Francesca Zanotto
• Localización: EURAU18 Alicante: Retroactive Research: Congress Proceedings / coord. por Javier Sánchez Merina, 2018, ISBN 978-84-1302-003-7, págs. 351-355
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • The paper intends to illustrate the application of Circular Economy to the design of the built environment, with a focus on the Dutch case. CE is a flexible framework supporting the optimization of resource use through a global redesigning of production processes and supply of services, according to a model which involves the employment of waste as an input material for new production cycles; the sharing of physical assets; the virtualization of processes; the reuse of goods and materials. CE represents a promising option to design a sustainable built environment in the current condition of resource scarcity. In the Netherlands, CE is implemented in the urban development through a bottom-up, widespread planning approach, sustaining citizens in developing individual housing projects to build through zelfbouw - self-construction. Zelfbouw adapts circular methodologies, tools and strategies to implement innovative sustainable solutions, control construction costs and develop experimental forms of living. This process leads to a specific architecture, with peculiar characteristics: the investigation on this ‘circular architecture’ opens promising perspectives for the definition of new design strategies to deal with current conditions of resource scarcity.