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Intense urbanization has led us to rethink construction and demolition practices on a global scale. There is an opportunity to respond to the climate crisis by moving towards a circular built environment. Such a paradigm shift can be achieved by critically examining the possibility of reusing components from existing buildings. This study investigates approaches and tools needed to analyse the existing building stock and methods to enable component reuse. Ocular observations were conducted in Google Street View to analyse two building-specific characteristics: (1) façade material and (2) reusable components (window, doors, and shutters) found on building facades in two cities: Barcelona and Zurich. Not all products are equally suitable for reuse and require an evaluation metric to understand which components can be reused effectively. Consequently, tailored reuse strategies that are defined by a priority order of waste prevention are put forth. Machine learning shows promising potential to visually collect building-specific characteristics that are relevant for component reuse. The data collected is used to create classification maps that can help define protocols and for urban planning. This research can upscale limited information in countries where available data about the existing building stock is insufficient.

Operating with an abundance mindset – rather than from a place of “scarcity” – is a new paradigm, relevant to the practices of design and construction, which expands the definition of “resources” as well as where resources, both raw and non-raw materials, can be found and “mined”.Within three scales of design and planning, the current research – developed at the Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia (IAAC) – examines the applications of computational technologies and life cycle assessment with the goal of setting up protocols for enhancing processes of urban mining and material reuse in future circular construction. In the material scale (i), selected projects experiment with up-cycled waste for the creation of new engineered composites for construction. In the building scale (ii), robotic technologies and computer vision are used to scan and sort the materials from existing buildings or demolition sites. Finally, in the urban scale (iii), google images, satellite data and ML are used to index the existing material stock in building façades in cities.The research calls for agents involved in design, planning and construction to shift their focus to the anthroposphere as a source of, rather than just a destination for, processed goods. The concept of “urban mining” is revisited to manage the material stock in urban systems and the use of anthropogenic resources in new production cycles.Through a multi-scalar approach, the outcome challenges the foundation of our material practices, presenting the potential to disrupt linear patterns of design and making in the built environment.

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