Tier 1 and the supply chain.
We shouldn’t stop at lowering embodied and operational carbon when creating low carbon, sustainable buildings.A building’s impact starts before the building exists and carries on past the end of its useful life, as part of the circular economy.
We can demonstrate that early sustainable impact can have an exponentially positive impact on carbon savings and the creation of our sustainable future.. Second-hand, locally sourced materials can influence design.This might be re-using existing raised flooring, using demolition crush material for a piling mat, or re-using existing steel columns.A pre-demolition audit of an existing building highlights reusable and recyclable materials.
Where materials can be reused, these should be considered for reuse on the same or a local site, thereby reducing material miles and facilitating a more sustainable construction process.Although the circular economy market is in its infancy, by considering material reuse during the earliest design stages we can help build that marketplace.
In time, this market will help to further reduce material costs..
Following through the circular economy idea to the end of a building’s life, simple design choices allow new materials to be reused at that stage.A digital twin of a city would be too expensive to store and use, and it would also be immediately out-of-date.
We need to keep things simple as we work out how to achieve our goals, and the meaning of digital twin is simply a digital representation of a real thing.. Now, by real, we don’t necessarily mean physical.Sharp explains that the digital representation of a train timetable is just as important as the digital representation of a train itself, each providing important, but different, information.. Further, when we use digital twin technology there should always be a two-way interaction between the digital twin and the real thing.
The digital twin is used for simulation and experimentation, while the real-world thing provides feedback that can be used to affect the digital world.It’s possible that a digital twin could be real time, but it’s not a requirement.