What do partners gain from cooperation with the 'Stadsacademie'?
Directorate of Buildings and Facility Management of Ghent University has been an enthusiastic partner in the circular construction process for several years. We asked colleague Benedicht De Baets of Directorate of Buildings and Facilities Management of UGent if they wanted to share experiences with the 'Stadsacademie'
?The interaction between the students of the Circular Building Master's workshop and DGFB was a positive experience. The students came up with very concrete questions. This taught us that we are still doing very little circular building and that there was no overview of the limited circular interventions that were already being carried out. To provide the students with an overview, all project leaders were written to. This not only provided a brief overview but also raised awareness.
For the Paddenhoek project, we were already thinking about the implementation of circular principles that we would apply. Brainstorming with the students, certainly helped to ensure that more circular principles were included in the project. The students also worked out a roadmap for taking a circular approach to construction projects. For future projects, this roadmap applied flexibly depending on the type of project and partnerships, will be a concrete working tool.
The fact that different disciplines were involved in the Circular Construction master workshop has broadened our perspective on circularity. It makes us dream about the overarching social and economic added value that building projects could bring. How to concretize this is not yet clear, but any realization might start with a dream?
Photo: (c) B2Ai architects