Building sustainably? Yes, you can!

According to the European Commission, the construction sector alone is responsible for 40 per cent of primary energy demand in the EU and 36 per cent of climate-altering gas emissions. Again, cement, the undisputed king of construction, is responsible for about 8% of global emissions. According to the UN, energy consumption in the building sector is now at an all-time high. To this, you can add that more and more urban growth is expected in the coming decades, with the inevitable construction of more new buildings.

To really combat climate change, it is therefore essential to also focus on architecture and town planning. We have to design cities that pay attention to the reduction of emissions, but also to the new needs of those who live in them. To demonstrate how it can be done, we review a number of hopeful examples, all European, of green building and circular design.

Recently, journalist Leyla Boulton of the Financial Times interviewed Dutch architects and their start-ups in the construction of 'ecological and sustainable' buildings that attract investors. One of these will be built in the port city of Rotterdam. It is called Sawa and is a futuristic residential building made of sustainable wood (for every tree felled for its construction, four will be planted), 50 metres high and 17 storeys high, which, when completed at the end of 2024, will provide affordable housing for the middle class and, above all, will be 'carbon negative'.

While this is only an example on paper for now, the Netherlands can boast a model of ‘circular’ building already on the ground. This is Matrix One, a structure that can be reconfigured at will, designed as a temporary storage facility for materials. This building, located in the research hub of the University of Amsterdam, houses laboratories and start-ups dealing with sustainability. Each space in the structure is designed to be remodelled according to its use and 90% of the materials can be reused.

We stay in Northern Europe and move on to the Danish city of Roskilde. There, thanks to funds from the European Horizon 2020 programme, we find another interesting example. Here, an entire district of the city, about 30 kilometres from Copenhagen, originated in 2007 from the ashes of an old cement factory that, instead of being demolished, was reused as a base for new structures. The construction projects in the Musicon district have taken the old factory buildings into account, partly by redesigning them in creative ways to house housing or offices, and partly by ‘selectively demolishing’ them, i.e. in such a way as to ensure the recovery and recycling of as many resources as possible. In Musicon, the benches are made of concrete slabs salvaged from a nearby demolition site, while the skate park is constructed from the concrete that once belonged to a rainwater harvesting basin and, in addition to being an area where you can play, is also an award-winning urban drainage system.

Alongside the experiments stimulated by European funding, there are many other initiatives by young and innovative start-ups that are trying to make a difference. This is the case of the French Maison Tournesol, founded by a group of French architects, designers and craftsmen, for the realisation of public and private building projects characterised by a focus on reuse, local materials and bioclimatic architecture. Tournesol, as well as a design studio, is also a furniture design brand that exclusively uses recycled materials from waste from the Toulouse construction industry.

The examples could go on, but certainly these alone will not suffice to change the fate of an entire sector. Only clear policies reversing the current course will convince everyone that the question if you can build sustainably can be answered by a very loud and clear: Yes, we can!