The municipality as circular building director

City of Mechelen develops instrumentation and process descriptions

Several center cities and municipalities in Flanders do have the ambition to strengthen circular building, but often the expertise to maximize circular building principles is spread across different departments and the knowledge is fragmented. A circular building process also requires a different timeline, which does not match the current timing of projects. In order to make the system change within each municipal administration, there is a need for a "circular building director.

The City of Mechelen, VUB Architectural Engineering and VVSG want to investigate the role of the municipality as 'circular building director' on the basis of concrete test cases in which the municipality plays a different role each time (from builder, property manager to licensing authority).

The objective is to formulate a concrete set of instruments and process descriptions for the 'circular building director', so that every municipality in Flanders can use them to accelerate the step towards circular building. The inter-municipal exchange of learning lessons plays an important role in the creation of these tools and will create momentum to accelerate the systematic implementation of circular building principles within the operations of municipalities and cities.

Image: © Caaap