We are already more than used to recycling our household waste. In Spain, for example, millions of tons of packaging are managed every year. But did you know that buildings and their materials can also be recycled? What's more, did you imagine that a building can be completely dismantled and reassembled?

Formula 1, often a laboratory of innovations, offers us a tangible example: network Bull's "pit box", the F1Holzhaus (literally, "the wooden house"). It made its debut at the 2019 Spanish Grand award and has been the team's "home" in Europe ever since. Every Grand award, fourteen workers assemble its 1,221 square meters in just 32 hours (and dismantle it in less than a day).

This building reflects a change in the concept of construction, which is now inevitably committed to sustainable buildings that can be adapted, modified and reused.

The construction industry is one of the largest generators of waste: some 2.2 billion tons per year globally. In Europe, about 450 million tons, 40 % of all waste.

More than 90% of the waste comes from demolition, but we should not forget those generated on site(leftover or broken materials) and those produced during manufacturing. The latter go largely unnoticed, but here's a fact: the wooden beams that we see in a building are only 20% of the original wood. Up to 80% has been left on the way from the forest as production waste (sawdust, scraps, discarded parts...).

This scenario reveals the limits of the linear model - make, use, dispose - which still dominates. To counteract this, circular Economics proposes design for disassembly as a strategy. It replaces demolition with systematic disassembly, which allows for the recovery and revaluation of components.

This paradigm shift (from "use, throw away" to "use, reuse, recycle"), already present in other areas, is beginning to take place in construction through various initiatives worldwide that seek to integrate these concepts in safer, more sustainable and durable buildings of the future. They are the sample how to achieve this through conscious design , based on concepts such as modularity and standardization. This is coupled with an appropriatedesign of reversible joints, which allow disassembly without damage (and therefore facilitate reuse) and digital tools already available as the "material passports", digital documents that locate and quantify the products and materials of the building, which will greatly simplify their future reuse.

But, obviously, the solution is not only to dismantle and reuse what has already been built. In this change of model, from linear to circular, it is also crucial to transform waste into resources. This means going beyond cascading, the traditional "recycling" in which waste is reused in products of lesser value (e.g., wood waste that is shredded to make panels). In contrast, the upcycling proposes that already discarded materials be given a new life as items of greater value or utility.

There are already concrete ideas for applying upcycling in construction. As we have seen, almost all of its waste comes from demolition. But what if that construction waste didn't go to the landfill? What if it could be used to make a new building? That's the area of work and exploration of Spanish designer Lucas Muñoz. Look at the furniture and lamps at MO de Movimiento restaurant or Sancal's CoLab space (both in Madrid) and think about how they could be made from what materials. Can you guess? Everything is made from the waste of the previous venue.

It is also necessary to act on production waste (remember that 80% of wood that is lost on the way from the forest to the building). As an example, the PRISMAproject is an initiative that proposes the manufacture of high added value products, such as building blocks (wood bricks) from sawmill waste that would otherwise go to energy production (they would be burned) or the manufacture of panels.

As we have already mentioned, upcycling makes waste more valuable. So it is necessary to look for new, imaginative solutions: Build a building out of PET plastic soft drink bottles? No problem: look at the façade of EcoArk in Taiwan, built by fitting them together. And of course, the building is also entirely demountable.

In reality, none of this is new. We have been doing it for generations, in a reasonable and healthy relationship with our environment.

Let's finish with another example of running: the running of the bulls of San Fermín in Pamplona. The fences that protect the public along its 848-meter course are made of Scots pine from the neighboring Roncal Valley. Its 900 posts, 2,700 planks and 2,500 wedges are not manufactured new every year (barely 2% are renewed annually). All the fencing is dismantled after the festivities, stored and reassembled the following year.

This strategy demonstrates how circular management , actually based on ancestral knowledge , is now the future of construction on the road to a more efficient and sustainable use of resources.

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