The brief

Buildings are often consider as a major secondary source of valuable materials, such as metals.^[1] However, these materials are not easily or frequently released. In fact, buildings prolong the in-use life of many materials, primarily because of the longevity of buildings: rather than replace buildings in relatively short cycles, as we do with e.g. cars or computers, we tend to preserve them, often for longer than originally intended, mending and fixing what still functions, even if performance is low.

This suggests that renovation and refurbishment rather than demolition may be the main release of materials from buildings. Kitchen and bathroom renovations, for example, are quite popular and frequent in many countries. Unfortunately, they are less rigorously regulated than demolition, also concerning waste production and management. A local authority wants to change this in a manner that provides reliable insights into the quantities and quality of materials released. To this effect, they need an information strategy for:

• Making explicit the quantities and qualities of materials released by renovations and refurbishments, starting with kitchens and bathrooms.
• Making reliable estimates of the circularity level of released materials, from reuse to recycling.
• Stimulating efficient and effective waste management by both enabling secondary material makers and imposing different disposal rates for different kinds of building waste.

To help the local authority achieve these goals, you are asked to develop a BIM-based process that will be compulsory for all building renovations and refurbishments. This process should include:

1. A clear description of the existing situation (current phase)
2. A precise account of what is to be taken out of a kitchen or bathroom (extraction phase)
3. The exact process of extraction, from deconstruction to local demolition (important for the quality and reusability of components, as well as for the cost)
4. Guarantees that no hibernating materials or pollutants are left in the building
5. A precise specification of all new components to be added to the kitchen or bathroom (construction phase)
6. Expectations for waste management in future renovations and refurbishments (how the new components will help higher extraction rates or circularity levels)
7. Arguably the most important for your client: a way of connecting information on individual cases to strategic management and policy making for the whole municipal stock

Note that the overarching goal of the project is not to promote specific circularity approaches but to provide unambiguous and reliable information that helps understand the potential and feasibility of any approach to waste management, sustainability and circularity. To this end, your process design should include the ability to handle uncertainty and vagueness, as well as the ability to remove them.

Deliverables

1. Process and information diagrams, accompanied by short explanatory comments
2. Model of an indicative case in a BIM editor
3. Schedules for quantitative and qualitative analyses in BIM

Evaluation criteria

1. The process diagrams should:
   1. Make all actors, stakeholders and tasks explicit
   2. Include feedback loops in decision making
   3. Have no unnecessary bridges
2. The information diagrams should:
   1. Indicate which symbols, properties and relations are relevant for this project
   2. Allow to detect how information is derived from primary data
   3. Contain clear measures for safeguarding information quality (especially with respect to circularity level)
   4. Illustrate how relevant quantities and qualities are estimated
   5. Explain the relations between individual buildings and the whole building sock (i.e. between private project management and municipal strategies or policies)
3. The model in BIM should contain:
   1. All relevant symbols of an indicative case
   2. Schedules for the necessary calculations

Roles

If the exercise is a group assignment, consider roles for the following aspects:

• Process management
• Information management
• BIM modelling
• Analyses in BIM (using schedules)
• Building documentation (emphasis on efficient solutions for high specificity)
• Kitchen and bathroom design
• Waste management