Library of Reuse

Kevin Kimwelle, a Kenyan architect and researcher, was never convinced that megastructures and massive development projects are the best way to serve African communities. Yet teaching sustainability to communities who already live it seemed hypocritical. As a result, he now practices community architecture, which foregrounds local knowledge as its greatest asset. From rural villages where reuse is a way of life to urban demolition sites where waste becomes a resource, his work in South Africa reconsiders circularity in construction. He talks to Noah Pasqualini, an assistant at the CEA Lab at ETH Zurich, about how community-driven design can bridge social, economic, and environmental divides.Episode credits:Interview by Noah Pasqualini. Produced and edited by Jennifer Bartmess with assistance from Noah Pasqualini and Reva Saksena. Music by Coma Media. © Chair of Circular Engineering for Architecture at ETH Zurich

Biology might seem like a discipline unrelated to construction. But nature self-organizes to build itself in fascinatingly complex ways. Gizem Gumuskaya brings together design aspects from synthetic biology to advance engineering methods that could one day construct self-organizing structures. She talks with Catherine De Wolf about falling in love with lab work as an architecture student, which led her to this new frontier of engineering and architecture. Episode credits:Interview by Catherine De Wolf. Produced and edited by Jennifer Bartmess. Music by Coma Media. © Chair of Circular Engineering for Architecture at ETH Zurich

Reuse in construction requires experimentation. The lack of established protocols and standard materials opens new realms of engagement for architects and engineers alike. Anna MacIver-Ek and Axel Chevroulet discuss how working with like-minded colleagues in the architecture collective La Clique gives them invaluable freedom to experiment with new ideas and designs.The guests talk with Ana Bendiek-Laranjo, Arabelle de Saussure and Catherine De Wolf of the CEA Lab at ETH Zurich about the value of combining practice with academia and the importance of working with both new technologies and traditional building methods.Episode credits:Interview by Ana Bendiek-Laranjo, Arabelle de Saussure, and Catherine De Wolf. Produced and edited by Jennifer Bartmess with assistance from Noah Pasqualini. Music by Coma Media. © Chair of Circular Engineering for Architecture at ETH Zurich

When people work with circular materials, they don’t get to start with a blank canvas of unlimited options. But Latifa Alkhayat, a teaching fellow at the MIT School of Architecture, describes how creative constraints can inspire new directions. She talks with Ana Bendiek-Laranjo and Catherine De Wolf from the CEA Lab at ETH Zurich about finding hands-on and bottom-up opportunities for creating the most impact for the afterlives of materials.Episode credits:Interview by Ana Bendiek-Laranjo and Catherine De Wolf. Produced and edited by Jennifer Bartmess with assistance from Reva Saksena. Music by Coma Media. © Chair of Circular Engineering for Architecture at ETH Zurich

Digital manufacturing, material processing methods, and modular systems can help us create more circular structures. But how far can 3D printing and automation really take us? Marirena Kladeftira, Design Tech Innovation Fellow at Cornell Design Tech, talks with Ioanna Mitropoulou, a postdoctoral researcher at the CEA Lab at ETH Zurich about the benefits and drawbacks of new technologies and traditional materials.Episode credits:Interview by Ioanna Mitropoulou. Produced and edited by Jennifer Bartmess with assistance from Noah Pasqualini. Music by Coma Media. © Chair of Circular Engineering for Architecture at ETH Zurich

When people think of 3D printing, they often think of plastic structures. But Virginia San Fratello, Chair of Design at San Jose State University, experiments in printing with materials like sand, clay, sawdust and even bonemeal to create haptic and comfortable structures made from local waste. Vanessa Costalonga, a PhD candidate at the CEA Lab at ETH Zurich, talks with her about how her multidisciplinary approaches fuse science and art in her teaching, her practice, and even to help coral reefs regenerate.Episode credits:Interview by Vanessa Costalonga. Produced and edited by Jennifer Bartmess. Music by Coma Media. © Chair of Circular Engineering for Architecture at ETH Zurich

Observation and imagination enable Ana Vargas to transform informal settlements together with their inhabitants. In this episode, she talks with Catherine De Wolf about her methods and designing together with children to co-create the playgrounds of their dreams using recovered materials.Ana Vargas is the founder and executive director of Trazando Espacios, a civic association for transforming community spaces in Venezuela. She collaborated with the CEA Lab in Insieme, a project that tracked and traced the histories of reclaimed bricks used for a structure at the 2025 Venice Biennale. The bricks, salvaged from demolition sites, highlighted the potential of creative reuse and participatory co-design. Episode credits:Interview by Catherine De Wolf. Produced and edited by Jennifer Bartmess. Music by Coma Media. © Chair of Circular Engineering for Architecture at ETH Zurich

Increasing impact in the circular economy depends on investment and entrepreneurship. But how can companies and startups design a world without waste and help us stay within our planetary boundaries?Ditte Lynsgaard Vind, chair of the Danish Design Council and founder of The Circular Way, seeks out business models that ensure more product circulation and reuse. Brandon Byers, a recent PhD graduate of the CEA Lab, talks with her about what approaches are needed to make the circular economy impactful for the built environment.See Ditte Lynsgaard Vind’s book Danish Design Heritage and Global Sustainability here.Episode credits: Interview by Brandon Byers. Produced and edited by Jennifer Bartmess. Music by Coma Media. © Chair of Circular Engineering for Architecture at ETH Zurich

What if construction waste were considered the result of a design error? Elma Durmisevic suggests that innovating adaptable, dynamic and innovative building systems would help create a circular value chain to prevent waste from ever being produced.Durmisevic founded 4D Architects, a firm that focuses on transformable structures, design for disassembly and system development. She also founded the GTB Lab, the European Laboratory for Green Transformable Buildings in the Netherlands, and the Green Design Center in Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina. Deepika Raghu a CEA postdoctoral researcher at ETH Zurich, conducted the interview. Raghu works across the Circular Future Cities Lab Design++, and DiCE Lab, developing AI-driven tools and digital workflows for circular construction in diverse global contexts.Learn more about GTB Lab, the European Laboratory for Green Transformable Buildings in the Netherlands:https://www.gtb-lab.comRead more about the Green Design Center in Mostar: https://www.bamb2020.eu/topics/pilot-cases-in-bamb/gdc/Episode credits: Interview by Deepika Raghu. Produced and edited by Jennifer Bartmess. Special thanks to Thomas Stahel for his sound engineering expertise. Music by Coma Media. © Chair of Circular Engineering for Architecture at ETH Zurich

Rotor is a non-profit research and design practice based in Brussels. It was founded to better understand material flows in the economy, and foster reuse strategies. Its spin-off company Rotor DC specialises in the salvage and supply of reusable building components and furniture.Michaël Ghyoot, project manager at Rotor, discusses what is involved in reusing building materials: from carrying out reclamation audits to cleaning, preparing, storing, and actually reusing the components themselves. He also describes how reuse requires a different way of thinking about construction projects – how conservation must be prioritised over demolition, and how skilled labour is needed throughout the whole process, from the demolition phase to the reuse of materials in a new project.Episode credits:Interview by Arabelle de Saussure. Produced and edited by Jennifer Bartmess. Music by Coma Media. © Chair of Circular Engineering for Architecture at ETH Zurich

The current construction sector is not sustainable. The sector produces 30% of global waste and 40% of human-generated CO2 emissions. It consumes 40% of the resources and energy we use. There is a lot of potential for improvement. Dr. Guillaume Habert is professor of the ETH Zurich Chair of Sustainable Construction. In this podcast, he talks with students Natalie Feakins and Noah Pasqualini about sustainability in the built environment and how life cycle analysis, green labels, and concepts such as a material diet can help transform the construction industry. They highlight how projects like the Kunsthalle exhibition, organized by the Chair of Circular Engineering for Architecture at ETH Zurich, can have an impact on circular construction.

Human consumption far oversteps planetary boundaries. Limiting consumption and economic growth seems like an obvious strategy for cutting emissions and protecting the environment. But Alessio Terzi, economist for the European Commission, explains why degrowth is not feasible for achieving our sustainability targets. He also discusses his 2022 book, Growth for Good, Reshaping Capitalism to Save Humanity from Climate Catastrophe.Episode credits: Interview by Catherine De Wolf. Produced and edited by Jennifer Bartmess. Music by Coma Media. © Chair of Circular Engineering for Architecture, ETH Zurich

Digitalisation is crucial for making construction more sustainable and circular. But the sector is slow to digitalise its processes and often relies on fragmented data.Martin Fischer, professor of civil and environmental engineering at Stanford University, explains how digitalisation improves project management, automation, and building information modelling to better navigate tradeoff decisions for more sustainable construction.Episode credits: Interview by Brandon Byers and Iro Armeni. Produced and edited by Jennifer Bartmess. Music by Coma Media. © Chair of Circular Engineering for Architecture, ETH Zurich

Human habitats and their infrastructure require a lot of space and resources. Could mixed reality help architects and engineers build spaces that put less pressure on our urban environments?Iro Armeni, professor at Stanford University, leads the Gradient Spaces Lab, where she combines computer science with architecture and engineering to create more circular, multifunctional, and reusable spaces.Episode credits: Interview by Jennifer Bartmess and Deepika Raghu. Produced and edited by Jennifer Bartmess. Music by Coma Media. © Chair of Circular Engineering for Architecture, ETH Zurich

Life cycle assessments (LCAs) are necessary for understanding the environmental impacts of buildings. André Stephan, associate professor at the University of Melbourne, researches how to scale up life cycle assessments so that they can be used to better understand the carbon footprint of the construction sector.In this podcast he talks with Prof. Catherine De Wolf about computational tools, challenges in creating life cycle assessments for buildings made of reused materials, and how academia is responsible for reducing the environmental impact of construction.See more on the Nested Phoenix project.Episode credits: Interview by Catherine De Wolf. Produced and edited by Jennifer Bartmess. Music by Coma Media. © Chair of Circular Engineering for Architecture, ETH Zurich

 Many of the current efforts to mitigate climate change and its effects rely on digital solutions. But what would our designs for landscapes and buildings of the future look like if we slowed down and paid more attention to the traditional knowledge that humans have acquired over millennia?Julia Watson is an urban designer and best-selling author on nature-based technologies for climate resilience. She teaches urban design at Colombia University in New York. In this interview, she discusses climate change awareness and indigenous technologies in sustainable building and education.Read more about Julia Watson and look into her new book, Lo-TEK. Episode credits: Interview by Catherine De Wolf and Deepika Raghu. Produced and edited by Jennifer Bartmess. Music by Coma Media. © Chair of Circular Engineering for Architecture at ETH Zurich