Maatschap

Research on reuse of residual flows from the construction and design sector for a circular economy

The construction and design sector still often uses a linear way of working, where everything is quickly discarded after use," find the partners of Maatschap. That is why they are looking for a design methodology where they reuse materials that can be reused again and again after their life cycle within a renovation project.

Maatschap is a team of designers, designers and architects. From their field of work, they want to reduce the impact that construction has on the environment. Their focus is on residential conversion projects. Here, they engage in critical dialogue with the client to make only essential interventions. During the design process, on the one hand, they map out the materials present and to be removed in order to give them a new function within the house. And look for methods to connect them intelligently to allow later reuse on the other hand. Possibly supplemented by bio-based materials.

Their research tries to find ways to reapply the hard-to-reuse materials. This will be tested and reported in their workshop. At a later stage, these are applied in an actual renovation project. As a result, they build up a library of solutions. For devising and hands-on experimentation, they collaborate with KASK IV. The applications are compiled and communicated in collaboration with LABLAND vzw. With the aim of a database usable by everyone.

Ongoing research is published on our website http://www.maatschap.net/.

Photo by Guilherme Cunha on Unsplash.com