A&D Materials Pledge Peer-to-Peer Network

How circular design impacts human wellbeing and community health  

Circular design is generally preferrable for communities. Because building demolition and new construction can affect the quality of local life for years with noise pollution and disruption of sidewalks and streets, reducing the need for new construction can be a win for neighborhoods. Overall, structural adaptation takes less time and causes less disruption than demolishing and building new. Compared with demolition, deconstruction of buildings is a more careful process that increases the team’s ability to control exposures to hazardous materials and dust—for both jobsite workers and surrounding communities. 

Circularity can also help to reduce the pressure of the many pressing human health challenges in manufacturing supply chains by reducing demand for practices that harm workers, communities, and ecosystems. While often, though not always, regulated, raw material extraction may run afoul of basic environmental and labor protections, as has been documented in mining and timber activities. Manufacturing, while tending to meet regulations, is prone to emissions that usually affect the most neglected communities, who tend to live downstream or near the sources of pollution. For some of these emissions, the entire world is at stake, as is the case with PFAS being found even in remote Arctic areas. Transportation of unfinished toxic materials also poses long-lasting risks to communities, as demonstrated by accidents such as the vinyl chloride spill in East Palestine, Ohio. Finally, the disposal of building products is the most notorious area of improvement tackled by circularity principles. In many ways, our reliance on a linear economy has made us irresponsible. Beyond meeting disposal regulations, we demand very little responsibility and liability for the afterlife and aftereffects of the products we discard. Plastics often end up in the ecosystem, waterways, and soils in ways that favor ingestion. And electronic waste is particularly toxic, given the variety of heavy metals used in circuits and the ubiquitousness of electronic products in our modern lives. By adopting a more circular materials cycle we can also begin to tackle complex environmental justice inequities at the same time. 

Designing and specifying materials with end-of-life in mind increases the likelihood of reuse and reduces (or eliminates) end-of-life emissions from demolition, transportation, and/or waste processing. Designers should avoid materials that are difficult to recycle or reuse, like coatings, adhesives, and other composite connections. Teams can collaborate to minimize finishes where not required for functional performance and select refurbished, carbon-storing, or otherwise lower-carbon finishes, particularly in spaces with high occupant turnover and frequent interior fit-outs where interiors account for a large portion of embodied carbon over building life. Hazardous materials must be identified in advance of construction to prevent accidental exposure to occupants and construction workers and to ensure their safe disposal and/or encapsulation. These materials include asbestos, lead, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), and heavy metals. 

Circularity and increasing resilience 

The use of durable, low-maintenance materials, such as stone and brick, helps buildings stand up to the forces of nature. These forces are becoming stronger due to climate change, increasing the levels of energy and heat in the atmosphere, making storms more powerful and winds more intense. Designing systems to be easier to repair and replace should become standard practice to minimize damage from the elements. Having a more robust structural system from the start provides greater resilience and increased building longevity and survivability. Durable materials and minimal use of extra finishes, especially finishes that are glued rather than mechanically fastened, can go a long way toward ensuring a longer life for the building and improving occupant safety.  

Biomaterials, biodegradability and circularity 

Bio-based materials typically have lower upfront embodied carbon intensities when compared to more heavily manufactured products, and have the potential to store carbon over the life of the material. Examples include mass timber, bamboo, wood fiberboard, straw, clay-straw, hempcrete, cork, wool, linoleum, and many more. In addition, some bio-based materials like mass timber are significantly lighter than their alternatives, reducing the load and size of supporting structural members. In some cases, the load may be reduced enough to allow for the preservation of an existing structure, unlocking additional savings from building reuse. While not all these products can be reused, given their biological origins, biodegrading is preferable to materials ending up in an anoxic landfill where they may remain for hundreds of years. In the case of wood and structural timber, it can often be reused or re-manufactured in new structures and re-constituted products like mass plywood panels, cross-laminated secondary timber or glulam. One way to ensure the ultimate ecosystem health of a material is to adhere to the basic tenet of biomimicry that life creates conditions conducive to life—meaning all materials should be non-toxic and support the growth of future lifeforms. In nature there is no waste; everything becomes food or habitat for other organisms. 

Circular materials and regenerative design 

AIA’s new strategic plan cites regenerative design as a stated goal, prioritizing human health, ecosystem restoration, and deep integration with ecological and social systems. Instead of merely minimizing harm, it adopts a net-positive approach—actively improving sites, communities, and ecosystems by viewing buildings as interconnected components of their surroundings and striving to enhance the vitality of both environmental and societal systems. The core pillars of this approach are:

• Whole Systems Thinking: Recognizing that the planet, ecosystems, and human communities are inextricably linked.
• Spirit of Place: Using the unique ecological and cultural conditions of a location to drive design solutions.
• Maximizing Carrying Capacity: Understanding and using a place’s ecological opportunities and limits to guide decisions toward synergistic and mutually beneficial outcomes for buildings, communities, and the natural environment.
• Actively Renewing Cycles: including water cycles, enriching biodiversity, and generating more energy than is consumed.
• Evolutionary: Designing for long-term adaptability so performance improves as conditions change. 

Adopting circularity principles align with these regenerative design principles, helping to avoid the trap of focusing on a single issue without considering tradeoffs and co-benefits. Renewed cycles and evolutionary design principles directly relate to the concept of materials reuse and resource flows. 

In the second article, we will delve into project and team strategies to increase the use of circular materials and processes. We’ll touch on rating systems, the regulatory and policy landscape, and share examples of circular material project success stories.