Circular Industrialised Housing: Insights from Solar Decathlon Europe 2022

Annette Davis, Gerard van Bortel () and Núria Martí Audí
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Annette Davis: Technical School of Architecture and Edification La Salle (ETSALS), Universitat Ramon Llull, 08022 Barcelona, Spain
Gerard van Bortel: Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment, Delft University of Technology, Julianalaan 134, 2628 BL Delft, The Netherlands
Núria Martí Audí: Technical School of Architecture and Edification La Salle (ETSALS), Universitat Ramon Llull, 08022 Barcelona, Spain

Sustainability, 2025, vol. 17, issue 2, 1-29

Abstract: The latest policy and research recommendations focus on advancing transition of housing to the circular economy framework to tackle environmental and affordability challenges. A key strategy for this is industrialised construction, which combines controlled manufacturing methods with strategies that facilitate future disassembly, allowing for adaptations, maintenance, and material reuse. Despite its importance, long-term housing solutions that integrate both industrialised construction and disassembly remain rare. This study obtained insights into circular industrialised housing from the Solar Decathlon Europe competition through interviews and observations with fifteen participating teams in Wuppertal, Germany, in 2022. The competition’s build challenge provided a unique opportunity to examine the practical application of both industrialised and disassembly approaches, where teams developed highly energy-efficient, affordability-conscious, and scalable housing systems. On-site interviews with team members from diverse disciplines took place midway through the competition’s assembly phase. These were further informed by observing team Azalea’s housing disassembly in Spain, which took place shortly before reassembly in Germany. Thematic and content analyses were conducted using a predefined framework based on holistic factors and lifecycle processes. Our results reveal the critical impact of Cultural factors, particularly during the (re)design process and provide new data to aid our understanding of the (dis)assembly process. This study contributes towards the development of a circular industrialised housing framework.

Keywords: circular housing; design for disassembly; industrialised construction; qualitative research; framework (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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