Ressource Blokken

A timber-based building system designed for disassembly, gives new life and value to old prefabricated building components. The glulam framework acts as a carbon sink, while mitigating the risk for the developer when reusing and upcycling a wide range of elements. The modular system can be adapted and scaled, enabling a large variation of typologies.

The vision for the transformation of Vollsmose is based on a three-pronged strategy: prioritizing preservation wherever possible, reusing existing materials with minimal intervention, and upcycling the remaining components to increase their value.

The prefabricated elements will be strategically removed to create new qualities in the original buildings, such as rooftop terraces and passageways. The elements are transported to an on-site material bank, where they are refurbished and reused in conjunction with the timber framework. When the construction phase is completed, the material bank is converted to a new community house and recycling station for the residents, thereby embodying the area’s story of transformation. The system is designed to be taken apart and reused at the end of the building’s life cycle, thereby ensuring the value of all components is preserved for future projects.

The strategy builds on the many benefits of building in wood to ensure cost-effectiveness, versatility, carbon sequestration, and biophilic qualities that benefit both people and the planet. This hybrid strategy of combining a timber framework with prefabricated concrete elements enables the reuse of building components to a much greater extent than if they were upcycled, resulting in significant environmental savings further down the line.

The modular building system is designed to offer the required strength, stiffness, and stability that is needed to support the reused building elements while providing a continuous load path to the foundation. Notched beams and columns provide a simple yet flexible framework to ensure easy installation while mitigating the risk for the contractor and developer.

To ensure optimal and unlimited reuse of all building components in future projects, the prefabricated elements are refurbished as individual components and panels. The knife plate assembly system means that the system can be easily assembled and disassembled in little time, thereby limiting emissions and costs related to production, construction, and end-of-life. In this way, the separation of structures and components becomes an embedded aspect of the design, ensuring a ”zero waste” concept that can set a new standard of sustainability for the Danish building sector.

Reusing the concrete components three times can result in a saving of between 33 and 60 percent in greenhouse gas emissions and thereby climate impact compared to single-use of the components and subsequently downcycling.