Current Work: Toward Circular Construction, with Felix Heisel

Current Work is a lecture series featuring leading figures in the worlds of architecture, urbanism, design, and art.

As dismissal of embodied carbon—emissions generated during the manufacturing, transportation, and installation of building materials—continues to exacerbate the climate crisis, how can architecture rethink construction sustainably?

A design research program dedicated to advancing the construction industry from linear material consumption to a circular economy, the Circular Construction Lab (CCL) was founded by Felix Heisel in 2020 at Cornell University’s College of Architecture, Art, and Planning. For CCL, circular construction involves activating the built environment as it currently exists for reuse and reconfiguration while designing and constructing buildings that can act as material depots for future assemblies. At this lecture, Heisel will expand on circular construction and the reuse imperative, from CCL’s policy white paper on deconstruction for New York State to his work on residential prototypes designed for future disassembly across Europe.

A circularity-themed trade fair will precede the lecture. See below for vendor details.  

Recent projects by CCL include:

Catherine Commons Deconstruction Project Led by CCL, this study systematically deconstructed a residential building in Ithaca, New York, to compare its material recovery rates and reuse pathways to conventional demolition methods, which contributed to circular construction policy development in New York State

Circulating Matters An installation comprising staircase prototypes that directly reused materials from the Catherine Commons Deconstruction Project to demonstrate the principles of material reuse and circular construction

Urban Mining and Recycling (UMAR) Unit A residential structure developed by Werner Sobek, Dirk E. Hebel, and Felix Heisel with Empa Dübendorf, whose design enable future disassembly and material reuse