Library of Reuse

What would it take to make building with reused materials as simple as building with new ones?

Andreas Oefner, managing director of Zirkular GmbH, joins Mikhael Johanes from the Chair of Circular Engineering for Architecture to discuss how circular construction depends not only on materials, but on rethinking entire processes. Drawing from his background in architectural drafting and history, he reflects on how technical knowledge and systems thinking can come together in the challenge of scaling reuse.

At the center of the conversation is Planular, the digital platform developed by Zirkular to organize material inventories, connect donor and receiving projects, and coordinate reuse — revealing that one of the biggest barriers to circular construction is not a lack of reusable materials, but the difficulty of connecting buildings, components, and people within the same process.

Episode credits

Interview byMikhael Johanes. Produced and edited by Jennifer Bartmess with assistance from Reva Saksena and Giulio Ceccarelli. Music by Coma Media. © Chair of Circular Engineering for Architecture at ETH Zurich

Product passports are a helpful tool for preserving the identities of building materials and meeting sustainability requirements. But voluntary product passports have unique advantages beyond legal requirements and audits.

Pedro Mêda a civil engineer who works at the Institute for Sustainable Construction and is an invited assistant professor and researcher at the University of Porto, joins Kasimir Forth and Silvia Vangelova from the Chair of Circular Engineering for Architecture to explore how digital building logbooks and digital product passports could reshape circular construction.

Drawing from two decades of work in academia, policy, and industry, he discusses tensions between technological innovation and industry adoption. He demonstrates how circularity requires changing how the construction sector thinks about responsibility, continuity, and collaboration.

Episode credits

Interview byKasimir Forth and Silvia Vangelova. Produced and edited by Jennifer Bartmess with assistance from Reva Saksena and Giulio Ceccarelli. © Chair of Circular Engineering for Architecture at ETH Zurich

How can technology help us better understand the built environment? Fiona Collins, Artificial Intelligence Research Engineer at Hexagon, joins Ioanna Mitropoulou, postdoctoral researcher at the Chair of Circular Engineering for Architecture at ETH Zurich, to explore how reality capture, point clouds, and artificial intelligence are reshaping the relationship between the physical and digital worlds. Starting from her background in environmental engineering and sustainability, Collins reflects on how the built environment became the focus of her work — and why bridging the gap between digital models and real-world conditions remains one of the field’s biggest challenges.

The conversation explores how data-driven workflows can support better decision-making across the lifecycle of buildings. Together, they discuss the growing role of AI in processing complex 3D data, the challenges of scaling these technologies in practice, and the evolving relationship between human judgment and machine reasoning in the built environment.

Episode credits

Interview by Ioanna Mitropolou. Produced and edited by Jennifer Bartmess with assistance from Reva Saksena and Giulio Ceccarelli. © Chair of Circular Engineering for Architecture at ETH Zurich

Computer vision is reshaping the way we understand the environment around us. Konrad Schindler, professor of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing at Department of Civil, Environmental and Geomatic Engineering at ETH Zurich, joins Ana Bendiek-Laranjo and Deepika Raghu at the Chair of Circular Engineering for Architecture to discuss how remote sensing and photogrammetry are transforming the way we map, analyze, and interpret the world around us.

From the blurred boundaries between photogrammetry and computer vision to the realities of working with imperfect data, he reflects on both the possibilities and limitations of data-driven approaches. He also differentiates between research and practical applications, and addresses the challenges of putting the growing amount of digital image data to good use.

Episode credits

Interview by Ana Bendiek-Laranjo and Deepika Raghu. Produced and edited by Jennifer Bartmess with assistance from Reva Saksena and Giulio Ceccarelli. © Chair of Circular Engineering for Architecture at ETH Zurich

Determining the sustainability of circularity and reuse is not easy to do. Life cycle sustainability assessment offers a way for evaluating environmental, economic and social impact. Marzia Traverso, head of the Institute of Sustainability in Civil Engineering at RWTH Aachen, discusses the complexity of quantifying tradeoffs, standardizing frameworks, and finding consensus for circularity in practice.

She talks with Heidi Silvennoinen, a PhD student at the CEA Lab and Block Research Group at ETH Zurich, and Catherine De Wolf about adapting life cycle assessment so that it can better incorporate and anticipate the sustainability and reuse of materials and components.

Episode credits

Interview by Heidi Silvennoinen and Catherine De Wolf. Produced and edited by Jennifer Bartmess with assistance from Noah Pasqualini. Music by Coma Media. © Chair of Circular Engineering for Architecture at ETH Zurich

Expert craftsmanship is indispensable, but having access to optimal tools can transform approaches to design. Andreas Rhyner, woodworking technician and event manager at Shaper Tools, talks with Ana Bendiek-Laranjo from the CEA Lab about his own training as a joiner and how he challenges himself to find new possibilities using digital technologies. His experience using new machines, software, and computer-aided design to build furniture has shaped his perspective on the future of woodworking and reuse.

Episode credits:

Interview by Ana Bendiek-Laranjo. Produced and edited by Jennifer Bartmess with assistance from Noah Pasqualini and Reva Saksena. Music by Coma Media. © Chair of Circular Engineering for Architecture, ETH Zurich

Kevin Kimwelle, a Kenyan architect and researcher, was never convinced that megastructures and massive development projects are the best way to serve African communities. Yet teaching sustainability to communities who already live it seemed hypocritical. As a result, he now practices community architecture, which foregrounds local knowledge as its greatest asset. From rural villages where reuse is a way of life to urban demolition sites where waste becomes a resource, his work in South Africa reconsiders circularity in construction. He talks to Noah Pasqualini, an assistant at the CEA Lab at ETH Zurich, about how community-driven design can bridge social, economic, and environmental divides.

Episode credits:

Interview by Noah Pasqualini. Produced and edited by Jennifer Bartmess with assistance from Noah Pasqualini and Reva Saksena. Music by Coma Media. © Chair of Circular Engineering for Architecture at ETH Zurich

Biology might seem like a discipline unrelated to construction. But nature self-organizes to build itself in fascinatingly complex ways. Gizem Gumuskaya brings together design aspects from synthetic biology to advance engineering methods that could one day construct self-organizing structures. She talks with Catherine De Wolf about falling in love with lab work as an architecture student, which led her to this new frontier of engineering and architecture.

Episode credits:

Interview by Catherine De Wolf. Produced and edited by Jennifer Bartmess. Music by Coma Media. © Chair of Circular Engineering for Architecture at ETH Zurich

Reuse in construction requires experimentation. The lack of established protocols and standard materials opens new realms of engagement for architects and engineers alike. Anna MacIver-Ek and Axel Chevroulet discuss how working with like-minded colleagues in the architecture collective La Clique gives them invaluable freedom to experiment with new ideas and designs.

The guests talk with Ana Bendiek-Laranjo, Arabelle de Saussure and Catherine De Wolf of the CEA Lab at ETH Zurich about the value of combining practice with academia and the importance of working with both new technologies and traditional building methods.

Episode credits:

Interview by Ana Bendiek-Laranjo, Arabelle de Saussure, and Catherine De Wolf. Produced and edited by Jennifer Bartmess with assistance from Noah Pasqualini. Music by Coma Media. © Chair of Circular Engineering for Architecture at ETH Zurich

When people work with circular materials, they don’t get to start with a blank canvas of unlimited options. But Latifa Alkhayat, a teaching fellow at the MIT School of Architecture, describes how creative constraints can inspire new directions. She talks with Ana Bendiek-Laranjo and Catherine De Wolf from the CEA Lab at ETH Zurich about finding hands-on and bottom-up opportunities for creating the most impact for the afterlives of materials.

Episode credits:

Interview by Ana Bendiek-Laranjo and Catherine De Wolf. Produced and edited by Jennifer Bartmess with assistance from Reva Saksena. Music by Coma Media. © Chair of Circular Engineering for Architecture at ETH Zurich