NEST office unit proves circular potential

A new unit was commissioned on Tuesday at the modular research and innovation building NEST of the Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology (Empa) and the Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology within the ETH Domain (Eawag). According to a press release by Empa, the office module called Sprint was completed in just ten months. It goes on to say that this demonstrates that building with recycled materials and parts is “a valid alternative to building with virgin materials” and “meets demands for flexible and fast construction”.

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The whole unit follows the “design for disassembly” approach. The flexible partitions can be deconstructed as needed. This enables flexible use of the space and recycling-friendly recovery of the materials used.

The press release goes on to state that the scepticism that still exists in the construction industry with regard to recycling materials is unjustified. Contrary to initial concerns about the tight schedule, Kerstin Müller, architect and member of the management team at baubüro in situ, which planned the Sprint unit, says “we were able to find the re-use materials even faster than new materials”.

Recycling is still not cheaper in today’s market situation, but this will change once a competitive market has developed according to Oliver Seidel, a “component hunter” at in situ. Furthermore, he adds that a CO2 tax is needed to “increase the price of new materials and relieve the costs for used materials, so that their ecological benefit can be quantified”.