Network

BRDA foundation - Poland

The BRDA Foundation carries out projects related to the circulation of reclaimed building materials in the construction industry.

It offers services to architects, asset managers, and real estate developers, promoting social involvement in the construction sector, decreasing CO2 emissions from investments, and minimizing waste.

The WINDOW project, in which the foundation sent over 2000 reclaimed PVC windows to Ukraine to support grassroots reconstruction, received the main prize at the London Design Biennale 2023.

BRDA is run by Zofia Jaworowska and Petro Vladimirov.

Zirkular - Switzerland

As specialist planners, Zirkular is guided by the diversity of circular building principles: building on existing structures, designing with what already exists and adding something new. For the future reuse and continued utilization of buildings and their components.

Zirkular supports and advices on projects and competitions and promote research and training. They are constantly expanding their network in sustainable construction.

baubüro in situ - Switzerland

Baubüro in situ has been involved in the conversion, appropriation and rehabilitation of buildings and the re-use of architectural elements for over 25 years.

Baubüro in situ has offices in Basel, Zurich, and Rolle.

Refunc - Germany

Refunc is a Dutch-German experimental architecture and design duo that has been committed to shifting peoples perception of the use of material, by shifting functions they are questioning the standard design approach where form follows function. In this way they try to achieve an endless lifespan of resources where anything can become anything.

Refunc was founded in 2003 in Den Haag, Netherlands, where it is currently based today in a former machine workshop called Maakhaven where many artists and makers gathered workspaces and studios. In 2013 Refunc opened their Berlin lab in ZK/U Art Center.

materialnomaden - Austria

materialnomaden gmbh is an Austrian based architecture, design & innovation studio that has evolved out of the re:use platform project HarvestMAP eGen (now www.restore.or.at) and the construction practice Bauteiler Gmbh & CO KG. It was founded in 2019 by Peter Kneidinger & Andrea Kessler.

materialnomaden puts a focus on the design process and development for circular products & projects within the building sector.

The sustainable methods within their practice comes hand in hand with a social transformation. The integration of participatory cooperative methods in the different project development phases leads to transformations within the operational and organizational structures that pave the way for a circular economy.

Concular - Germany

Concular is a Software-as-a-Service platform digitizing construction materials in existing buildings in the form of material passports. It provides an easy and profitable reuse of materials through intelligent match-making of the demand and offer side while establishing local „circular value chains“. Construction materials offered on our platform will be followed-up by a Life Cycle Analysis and the additional cost savings in order to assure an ecological and cost-efficient reuse process.

Concular was founded in 2020 and is based in Stuttgart and Berlin, Germany. Since 2012 the founding team is working on the idea of circular construction beginning with the founding of Restado (restado.de), a marketplace for used material.

Lendager - Denmark

Lendager is a Scandinavian architecture and innovation company dedicated to promoting sustainability and circularity in the built environment.

With a long list of acknowledged and on-going building projects in Iceland, Denmark, and throughout Europe, they continue to push the sustainability agenda.

Across clients, typologies and programmes, the projects always have one thing in common:
The effort to push the boundaries of what is possible in the built environment, especially when it comes to more sustainable use of materials.

Rotor - Belgium

Rotor is a Brussels-based non-profit organisation active in studying material flows in the economy. Started in 2005, Rotor has dedicated a large part of their work to the topic of salvage and reuse of building materials. Rotor explores this question through a wide range of missions:

-Assistance to building owners and policy-makers for implementing reclamation and reuse strategies.
-Research and development of public tools to facilitate the uptake of reuse strategies (including the reference web portal Opalis.eu, a directory of salvage dealers and a documentation centre on reuse).
-Raising awareness on ecology, reuse and sustainable construction through education, lectures and publications.
-Interior design, with a fair share of reused elements.

Between 2013 and 2016, Rotor hosted the RotorDC project – now a distinct cooperative company – which supplies reusable building elements salvaged from local demolition sites.

URRU - Spain

URRU, Recursos Urbans, is a young company based in Barcelona that connects people, companies and entities with the aim of activating the material reuse in the city, maintaining at the same time crafts and heritage.

It offers a wide range of services to promoters, owners, architectural studios, construction companies and manufacturers:

- Resources (pre-demolition) audit
- Stock inventory
- Deconstruction and transport of building materials (through inclusion entities)
- Preparation of reclaimed materials for reuse
- Support and advice for integrating second hand materials into new projects
- Redistribution of deadstock

TRNSFRM + VOLLGUT - Germany

TRNSFRM eG is an ‘umbrella’ cooperative for mixed-use building projects, with the self-conception of property development for the common good. Common good in the sense of sustainability and circularity as well as a mixed and equitable city. It was founded 2016 in order to design buildings that leave a positive footprint and enforce the realisation of consequent circularity. The CRCLR House is our example for the big question of how circularity can be realised in the dimension of hybrid buildings. Here we experiment new standards, ways of building and concept of communal living and working. 

VOLLGUT eG was founded by the former TRNSFRM Team with the similar principal. The new cooperative is developing and designing the next 40.000 qm of the former brewery warehouse adjacent to the CRCLR House where we are taking the experience of the circular practice to a next stage.

SPOLIA STUDIOS - Denmark

Spolia was an ancient and widespread practice of repurposing stone. Stripping it from an old structure, and giving it at new purpose elsewhere. Spolia Studio sets out to recall this organic way of appreciating material.

The studio works artistically across genre and scale, repurposing places, spaces and matter. By name, committing to take every project, with all participants, as far into the logic of circularity as possible.

Projects aim to achieve on-site circulation of stripped material, and reuse of the loadbearing structures (often) already there. On the matter of repurposing material, searching for results that in the end will make us connect beauty with sustainability. Only.

Every now and then, the office fire off catalysts for change, that aim somewhere between full political provocation and gentle nudging – finding alternative ways to pave the path for circularity, and criticize the status quo of building industry’s bad habits. 

Skepnad - Sweden

Skepnad are architects specialized in retrofitting and adaptive reuse of old industrial buildings into dense, mixed-use cultural spaces.

Skepnad has its own building company where we adapt our theories about the "slow building process". The process alows us to full-scale test our ideas, reuse as much as possible and tear down as little as possible. We also know stuff about building conservation and digitalizing old buildings

Studio Acker - Austria

Studio acker, an Austrian-based architecture studio with the commitment to reusing and repurposing buildings and materials.

The core value is a dedication to challenging the status quo of traditional design practices, paving the way for a more eco-conscious future – that includes forward-thinking strategies encompass water, food, and energy cycles, ensuring the preservation of vital resources.

Forma - Denmark

Forma works with the design of buildings, cities, and public spaces, primarily focusing on new construction and transformation of residential, commercial, and cultural buildings, as well as smaller master planning and landscape projects.

Their approach is rooted in historical cultural heritage with a focus on sustainable construction practices, fine craftsmanship, and the use of biobased materials. They believe that good architecture should be judged based on aesthetics, durability, quality, and consideration for its environmental impact.

Therefore, Forma also works on the preservation, renovation, and revitalization of architecturally and historically significant buildings and cultural environments, including protected and listed buildings, churches, and more.

The firm was established in 2022 and is run by partners and architects MAA Mikkel Bøgh and Nicolai Richter-Friis.

Superuse Studios - The Neatherlands

Superuse Studios is an international architecture collective for circular and sustainable design.

A design is not considered as the beginning of a linear, but circular process: A phase in a continuous cycle of creation and recreation, use and reuse.

We apply several strategies to make sustainable architecture with reclaimed materials.

Atelier Gapont - Liechtenstein

Atelier Gapont is a Liechtenstein-based architecture firm founded on the belief that to deviate from the linear trajectory, our profession must intervene in the dialectical relationship between the production of the built environment and public discourse. Our work therefore encompasses the design of buildings, discursive realms and future concepts. 

ZirkuLIE - Liechtenstein

ZirkuLIE is Liechtenstein's first competence centre for the circular economy focused on the construction sector. As a catalyst for circular construction, ZirkuLIE is committed to advancing the transition towards sustainable building practices through four key initiatives:

#Networking: Bridging actors along the construction value chain
#Awareness Building: Coordination and dissemination of know-how
#Enabling: Promoting regional synergies & capacity building
#Implementing: Supporting the realisation of circular construction projects

ZirkuLIE aims to lead the construction industry towards a more sustainable and circular future through these initiatives. .