Design support tools for circularity-driven renovation projects

Never demolish, never remove, or replace. Always add, transform, and reuse, is the leitmotiv of the 2021 Pritzker Prize Anne Lacaton and Jean-Paul Vassal. Rather, extend the lifecycle of buildings, make clever use of what exists, enhance their performance, and prepare them to face future challenges. In this sense, building renovation is the most sustainable and circular kind of intervention that can be undertaken in the built environment. However, simply reusing existing buildings is no longer enough by itself. As circularity gained traction in many sectors, also in construction, key players have been called to perform sustainable renovation projects in the long term. This means considering the impact from the entire life cycle of added materials and components rather than only focusing on lowering the operational energy of existing buildings. Otherwise, the final energy and carbon balance of the renovation might be unfair. Given the high degree of complexity of the retrofitting process, which includes environmental, social, logistical, technical, and economic issues, designers would benefit from a comprehensive assessment of as built and an effective forecast of the effects of design choices on the building and its broader context. To this end, several design-supports tools have been developed, the most promising and forward-looking, including sustainability and circularity of resources as guiding principles.