Urban Symbiosis of Building Materials in Amsterdam

The large growth of cities over the years has led to a greater resource demand in urban areas. Subsequently, after usage, those resources end up in large waste flows to be transferred to the outskirts of the city and its hinterlands. Moreover, those resources put high pressure on existing urban systems which have to deal with more complexity. An integration of systems is needed to move towards more sustainable cities. The construction sector can be seen as one of the largest contributors to the problem. Although cities are aware of the urgency, their building plans often seem to be in tension with the environmental aims set. The city of Amsterdam has for example planned a significant number of new building projects in the coming years; however, it also has to comply with the national vision set which states the ambition to decrease the amount of raw materials that are used. In order to meet both aims, interventions have to be found for Amsterdam’s building projects in which raw materials can be substituted by reused materials.

This research investigated whether urban symbiosis, a strategy that focuses on the reuse of waste streams in an urban local network of stakeholders, is applicable to construction materials. More specifically it researched which designs can be created that facilitate conversations between symbioses’ stakeholders while valorising those construction waste flows in the city of Amsterdam.

By adopting the “Research through Design” methodology as a larger framework, the study has performed research with respect to both its research and design objectives. Within this framework, the study has made use of a case study, a renovation project in Amsterdam, to which the urban symbiosis strategy was applied. By literature research, interviews and a focus group data was gathered.

The study shows the potential for the urban symbiosis strategy to be applied to building materials. However, also some challenges have been indicated with respect to the complexity of the process, costs and the to-be-reused material’s quality and requirements. The study presents several prerequisites to overcome those challenges.

In order to move towards an urban symbiosis and start reusing construction materials, the reuse process of those materials was investigated. The study derived a five-phase reuse process, including the indication of supply, harvest, design, processing and implementation. Furthermore, stakeholders in a construction material symbiosis have been identified and have been mapped in a value flow model clarifying the particular relationships and exchanges between them. In comparison to the traditional organisation of stakeholders, mainly changes at the supply side can be observed. Lastly, design criteria for each step in the reuse process have been derived for a design that could help establish an urban symbiosis.

Combining the design criteria with the reuse process and the stakeholders’ network, a design for a platform was proposed that is able to start and facilitate the conversations in a symbiosis’ network. It can be concluded that the platform can play a major role in the first two phases of the reuse process and so in the connection of supply and demand in the urban mine. The study finally presented a framework which shows the possible interactions between the stakeholders and the platform. The platform design can be seen as a first step towards the successful application of the urban symbiosis strategy for construction materials that helps the building sector in achieving a more sustainable performance.