BASAJAUN – Building A SustainAble Joint between rurAl and UrbaN Areas Through Circular And Innovative Wood Construction Value Chains

European rural areas will boost when their natural resources constitute the basis of innovative and sustainable value chains with a high positive economic impact. In this sense, forests constitute an asset that provide not only ecosystems and biodiversity, but also a valuable and sustainable raw material, ”wood”. Wood is consumed by various sectors, including one of the most ”raw materials” demanding sector, the construction.

BASAJAUN project is a puzzle composed of 1st and 2nd transformation companies, research organizations, associations and public bodies that are focused on maximizing the forest value through its use in wood construction, with 30 partner organizations in total. Its main goal is to optimize the use of wood resources to enable the construction of a medium sized building (16 dwellings with 4 floors) with the lower possible forest hectares – that will depends on the tree species and the forest local peculiarities (climate, surface, ..). The whole process will be optimised to maximize the consume of wood products from the forest (solid wood, fibers, veneers, bark, sawdust, etc.).

For the purpose of the project, a) innovative wood-based construction materials (thermal insulation, composites, varnishes, SIPs) and systems (structure, facades, floors, walls, roof and fixings) will be developed and upscaled, b) two full -scale demo buildings (Finland and France) that use those products will be constructed, c) digitalization of the whole construction value chain (from forest to building) will be done and d) the rural development impact will be studied at regional level. The environmental impact of the products of these value chains will be assessed as well. Besides, to assure a sustainable impact of the project a novel thematic platform to integrate the stakeholders of the wood region with urban areas will be developed. Besides, BASAJAUN leverages the previous results of successful projects where the innovative materials and systems were designed at laboratory and semi-industrial scale.

Coordinator of project: Javier Garcia, TECNALIA (Spain).

Coordinator of Luke sub-project: Henrik Heräjärvi (Joensuu).

Duration: 1.10.2019 – 30.9.2023

Partners:

Spain: FUNDACION TECNALIA RESEARCH & INNOVATION, INDUSTRIAS QUIMICAS IRURENA SA, Grupo Garnica Plywood S.A.U., Peñascal S. Coop., ENVOLVENTES ARQUITECTONICAS ENAR SL, AIMPLAS – ASOCIACION DE INVESTIGACION DE MATERIALES PLASTICOS Y CONEXAS

France: INSTITUT TECHNOLOGIQUE FCBA(FORETCELLULOSE BOIS-CONSTRUCTION AMEUBLEMENT), DEPARTEMENT DE LA GIRONDE, SOPREMA

Finland: Teknologian tutkimuskeskus VTT Oy, LUONNONVARAKESKUS (LUKE), ELASTOPOLI OY, Vipura Oy

Sweden: RISE RESEARCH INSTITUTES OF SWEDEN AB, LUNDS UNIVERSITET, MOELVEN TOREBODA AB, RemaSawco AB, STRUSOFT AB

Germany: TECHNISCHE UNIVERSITAET MUENCHEN, FRAUNHOFER GESELLSCHAFT ZUR FOERDERUNG DER ANGEWANDTEN FORSCHUNG E.V.

Italy: FOCCHI SPA, ALPHA CONSULTANTS S.R.L.

The Netherlands: Etcetera Design&Innovation, Van Berkel & Bos U.N. Studio B.V.

Hungary: OMIKRON-DOKK MUANYAGIPARI KFT

Portugal: Treely.ai, Lda

Poland: INSTYTUT TECHNOLOGII DREWNA

Belgium: INNOVAWOOD ASBL

Chile: PONTIFICIA UNIVERSIDAD CATOLICA DE CHILE

InFutUReWood: Innovative Design For the Future – Use and Reuse of Wood (Building) Components

Building in wood is a priority in Europe as part of a strategy to convert from fossil-dependency to a sustainable, bio-based economy. Timber construction is growing and innovative, with new methods of building and new engineered wood products, composites and treatments. Very large volumes of wood are being put into buildings and the quantity used is often seen as a virtue (as sequestered carbon). This project looks one step into the future to ask: “How should we build today to be able to circulate tomorrow?”
To answer this question, we need to know how we should design timber buildings, and wood-based construction products, from the perspective of reuse and recoverability. Crucially, to better understand how design and construction impact on material reuse and recirculation we need to know how choices made in the past affect current practice in renovation and demolition. This will inform us about what problems are likely with current methods of building – particularly those that contain large volumes of timber. We will also look at the potential for the reuse of current reclaimed wood, and other timber not currently entering the circular economy, in these new constructions.
We aim to answer the questions “how easy is it to reuse wood from current buildings especially as structural material?” and “how can the past experience help the future?” and identify key problem areas and propose technical and methodological solutions to address them. This knowledge will be transferred to industry to avoid inadvertent and unnecessary problems for future generations.
The potential for the recovery and utilisation of recovered wood from buildings in material applications has been shown in two recent transnational European projects: Demowood – “Optimisation of material recycling and energy recovery from waste and demolition wood in different value chains” and CaReWood – “Cascading Recovered Wood”. The results show that transformation of recovered wood in new material applications can be conducted in a sustainable and efficient way. Despite the overall beneficial transformation processes, the efforts required are high and result in a small yield. Consequently, to reduce the processing effort and maximize yield and recycling rate, buildings and elements need to be constructed following the concept of design for recycling.

The objectives of the project are:
1. To develop a method for ensuring future possibility of circulation of timber products with true consideration of whole life-cycle, and practical industry issues at design, construction and deconstruction phases.
2. To plan primary design to facilitate deconstruction rather than demolition, and to pay attention to the use of chemical treatments, adhesives and other synthetic materials – including to decide whether their use technically is necessary and avoid over-specification.
3. To optimize the primary design to enhance resource efficiency as well as reduce environmental impacts along the life cycle (build and deconstruction).
4. To allow grading for quality of recovered wood, and similarly variable new wood from more diverse sources, in a way that is compatible and equivalent to grading of new timber from the main commercial species (including the basis in European standardization).
5. To identify potential new construction products using recovered timber.
6. To examine the business, economic, and environmental factors over the life-cycle to inform what is to be optimized, encouraged and avoided in design (to be described by a “rebuilding factor”).
7. To inform current engineers, architects and wood-based construction product manufacturers through professional development, industry bodies, codes and standards.

Circular Economy – A game changer for the wood building industry

The overall goal for the project “Circular Economy – A Game Changer for the Wood Building Industry” is to boost regional companies competitiveness on the international market by initiating new technologies, networks and business ecosystems. The project will contribute to the EU Interreg Botnia-Atlantica business priority and offers an increased capacity for cross-border business cooperation for companies within the construction and property management industry. The project main goal is to support our regions SMEs in overcoming common barriers when trying to adopt circular business models.

Over the next 10 years, the demand for global construction is expected to increase by 70 %. This is a challenge in a world where more and more resources are becoming scarce. In addition to constructing new, there is also an urgent need to upgrade the existing building stock. Thus, it is a burning issue to develop new models and practices for the construction industry in order to prepare the trade for the future. Circular economy is an industrial system that replaces the traditional linear business model with a circular one. For companies this means introducing new business models based on repair, reuse, refurbishing, remanufacturing and recycling. For customers this means replacement of worn products with sustainable products or services.

Duration: 2018 – 2020
Main funding: EU Interreg Botnia-Atlantica
Partners: Novia University of Applied Sciences from Vaasa (leading partner), Tampere University of Technology/School of Architecture/Seinäjoki Urban Laboratory, Seinäjoki University of Applied Sciences, Umeå University/Department of Applied Physics and Electronics and Umeå University/Umeå School of Business and Economics.

Re-use of structural elements. Environmentally efficient recovery of building components

The building element re-use practices differ with the size and complexity of the reclaimed parts. The smaller ones such as bricks, wooden boards and steel sections tend to be re-used in a more organized way, collected in the salvage yards and re-sold as basic materials in the local community. On the other hand, larger and more complex structural systems have a higher value, but lower applicability, and therefore a different approach should be selected for their re-use.

Online marketing, component labelling and BIMs are the technologies that are feasible for increasing the efficiency of such components’ re-use. The special category is the whole building structure. Re-use of building components is generally one of the most environmentally friendly end-of-life scenarios of the building; provided that the durability of the components extends the life of the building and that there is a suitable application for it. Re-use benefits can nowadays be declared in a standardized way according to EN 15978.

Many environmental certification systems recognize re-use in their assessment process, however, the contribution of material and resource efficiency to the overall score is usually very low.

There are many other practical obstacles to the building components’ re-use that should be addressed. One is the lack of strength grading rules for materials in re-used elements. This means that re-usable load-bearing components are often forced to be applied to non-structural purpose unless they are thoroughly tested in certified laboratories. Another obstacle is the difficult of deconstruction of existing buildings. The extended time and high demands on manual labour usually increases the cost of the whole process. This can be partly improved by applying standardized deconstruction practices, proper staff training and using selected technologies for deconstruction.

However, the greatest impact on a building’s reusability is in its design stage. Therefore, we recommend addressing this issue in the planning of future steps towards resource efficiency.

The standardization process and the recent changes in the environmental certification systems indicate that the importance of life-cycle assessment of buildings and components will grow in the near future. However, there is a lack of reliable LCA data for the most critical stages in re-use such as deconstruction, sorting, quality check and re-distribution of materials and components. These gaps in lifecycle inventory databases have to be addressed in the future.