ROTOR - Salvage and Reuse of construction elements instead of creating new ones

Business case

Impact on increased knowledge and understanding as a result of the case study

Increase Awareness

Impact on the quantity or quality of jobs, and shifts in the labour market

Jobs

Impact on the health and happiness of human populations

Well-being

Contribution to social parity, or impact on social disparity

Equality

Direct and indirect reduction in economic costs

Cost Savings

Direct and indirect effects that increase revenues or the potential for new revenues, for example from new products, customer segments, partnerships or business models

Revenue Potential

Impact on the ease of innovation, and facilitating uptake of innovations

Innovation

Reduced green house gas emissions released into the biosphere

Reduce Emissions (SDG13)

Reduced use of virgin materials and/or an increase of the use of secondary and bio-based materials

Reduce Material Consumption (SDG12)

Minimise waste through diversion: Instead of sending waste to landfill, it is redirected into other industrial processes for handling, treatment, recycling, recovery, or reuse in various forms. 

Minimise waste through design: At the outset of a process of project, plan and design such that there is zero waste or minimal waste during production, use, and at end of life. 

Minimise Waste (SDG12)

Reduced use of fossil fuel energy sources and/or increased use of renewable energy

Reduce Energy Consumption

Producing and providing services that utilise the creative talent of individuals to generate intellectual property, including movies and television shows, music, live performances, advertising, marketing or public relations services, newspapers, magazines and books, and commercial printing services

Creative Services

Providing air, water, rail, and land transportation and related services for the distribution of goods, such as air freight, air courier and logistics services, maritime freight, marine courier and logistics services, rail freight, rail courier and logistics services, land freight, land courier and logistics services, including package and mail delivery and customs agents, as well as storage and warehouse facilities

Logistics Services

Providing residential and non-residential construction services, such as architectural, engineering, planning, real-estate, contracting, and inspection services

Construction and Real Estate Services

Producing building materials and finished and semi-finished building products for construction

Construction Materials and Products

Upgrade, repair, and maintenance while in-use

Maximise lifetime of products in-use

Deliver products through business models that ensure maximum value

Product business models

Deliver services through business models that ensure maximum value

Service business models

Designing to reduce waste during production and use

Design out waste

Designing to enable multiple uses and lifecycles of a product and its materials

Design for cyclability

Designing products that are made to last and to ensure longer use

Design for durability

Industry peers to industry peer collaboration to create joint value and identify synergies

Industry collaboration

Engage and guide customers and consumers to ensure circular use of products

Customer / consumer collaboration

Engage with the local community where facilities or offices are located

Community collaboration

Collection programmes that process products and parts for reuse or recycling within the same industry

Closed loop collection

Transforming waste products, materials for reuse within the same industry

Closed loop upcycling

Using waste materials that have been processed and recycled to produce new products within the same industry

Using closed loop recycled materials

Slow strategies aim to keep materials in use for as long as possible, for example through design for durability and repairability. A more circular economy is also a slower one: materials, components, and products—and even buildings and infrastructure—that we lock in stocks are made to last. This will lower material demand in the long run, in essence also serving to narrow resource flows.

Slow

Cycle strategies aim to cycle and reuse materials at their highest value: they maximise the volume of secondary materials re-entering the economy, ultimately minimising the need for virgin material inputs and therefore also narrowing flows. Of course, virgin materials will always be needed to a degree: all materials degrade and can’t be cycled infinitely, use energy, and require blending with virgin materials to maintain strength and functionality.

Cycle

Impacts

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Industries

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The principles of a circular economy concern designing out waste, regenerating ecosystems and keeping items in use. Decoupling the economy from material flows—improving the rate of resource productivity faster than the economic growth rate—is also a consistent guide. By evolving with the growing number of applications of circular economy principles, and consolidating these strategies across thematic areas, Circle Economy’s Key Elements Framework (KE) renders the elements of the circular economy salient and serves as a basis to derive contextual strategies and interventions. 


The Framework consists of:
- Core Elements: Activities directly handling product or material flows; and uniquely,
- Enabling Elements: those that remove obstacles for core actors.


Key elements of the circular economy

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Circle Economy's framework of strategies and activities that define the circular economy

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Based on the work of [Bocken et al. (2016)](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/309699661_Product_design_and_business_model_strategies_for_a_circular_economy), the Four Flows Framework serves as a simple framework for managing resource flows in a circular economy by using less (Narrow), using for longer (Slow), using again (Cycle), and using clean, regenerative materials and energy (Regenerate).

These different principles of circular economy can be applied to our socioeconomic metabolism: we can design stocks like buildings, infrastructure, machinery, and vehicles to be rich resource mines for the future, and design manufactured goods and consumables to be cycled and made regenerative. Furthermore, the focus must also centre on getting more value out of fewer materials. Achieving the aims of a circular economy—minimising material use, regenerating the Earth, and preventing material losses—can be done through these four key strategies mentioned above.

Source: Circle Economy. (2023). *[The circularity gap report 2023](https://www.circularity-gap.world/2023)* (p.22). Amsterdam: Circle Economy. 

Four Flows Framework

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       Rotor is a cooperative design practice that investigates the organisation of the material environment. We develop critical positions through research and design. Besides projects in architecture and interior design, we also produce exhibitions, books, economic models and policy proposals. In 2016, we've launched the spin-off project Rotor DC. This is the place to buy salvaged building components.              Design
We are able to undertake interior design projects crafted around reclaimed elements. Merging design and construction allows us to develop projects as a bespoke answer to the client's needs.  Design assistance
We can assist design teams and building commissioners in providing guidance for missions such as: identifying the reusable elements in an existing building (reuse assessment); establishing reuse strategies, setting reuse targets and create evaluation tools; scouting suitable reclaimed elements; writing down bespoke specs for integrating reuse strategies; and design the projects so as to maximize the integration of reclaimed construction elements.  Publication
Publications are an integral part of our work. These allow us to share our findings and experience more largely.  Exhibition
Exhibitions are a format that allows us to deepen a specific theme that makes us curious. We usually carry out ourselves the research process, the curating and the scenography of the exhibitions. We often realize the installation as well.  Research
Research is central in all Rotor's projects. Yet, some projects are more specifically oriented towards the investigation of specific topics, such as sustainability, circularity and the material economy. If some of our research project are quite theoretical, others are more action-oriented. In every case, we rely on a strong empirical approach.  Education
We intervene in architecture, design, arts or engineering schools and universities, for periods varying from a 1-day lecture, a 1-week workshop or a 6-months studio.     
          Lionel Billiet, Charlotte Bonduel, Tristan Boniver, Sophie Boone, Lea Bottani-Dechaud, Stijn Colon, Pascale Damsin, Leander Decloedt, Nicolas Delaunoy, Théo Dellicour, Nicolas Desart, Lionel Devlieger, Aude-Line Dulière, Mohsen Ebrahimi Aborke, Christophe Escalé, Gaspard Geerts, Michaël Ghyoot, Maarten Gielen, Cécile Guichard, Renaud Haerlingen, Loula Hesse, Quentin Lemarchand, Elie Maissin, Florence Meessen, Victor Meesters, Benoit Molherat, Olivia Noël, Sébastien Paulet, Luna Pittau, Margot Saulnier, Nicolas Schiltz, Melanie Tamm, Sarah Tilley, Arne Vande Capelle, Victoria van Kan, Pierre-Yves Volont, Raphaël Wagnon, James Westcott           Victoria Abelsen, Romann Acacia, Alex Basile, Lola Bazin, Koen Berghmans, Fani Bihr, Iveta Bláhová, Anne-Lise Bouillon, Florent Bouillon, Raid Boussouf, Jessica Butzberger, Amaury Caeyman, Livia Cahn, Barbara Calonger, Leo Cojean, Emmanuel Cortes Garcia, Alison Creba, Ariane d'Hoop, Koen Daems, Caroline De Decker, Camille de Jerphanion, Rein de Wilde, Elena Dell'Oro, Victoria Denimal,  Fien Deruyter, Camille Drion, Leila Eerens Sarango, Arthur Etard, Victor Everaerts, Al Fajersztjn, Andrea Ferreri, Matthijs Fieuws, Elise François, Melissa Garipuy, Celine Ghyselen, Beatrice Godon, Andrée Goldschmidt, Pauline Gonieau, Mathilde Haine, Anne-Catherine Hittinger, Louise Huba, Sarolta Hüttl, Melissa Jin, Samuel John Little,  Muhammed Karabelen, Ruth Kennivé, Romane Lavoine, Benjamin Lasserre, Aliki Loizidis, Katja Lorencic, Manal Makhoul, Hélène Mariage, Alexis Mazin, Romane M'Bao, Louis Merle d'Aubigné, Jelena Milanović, Susie Naval, Eva Neefs, Raoul Nguety Wandji, Tiffany Obser, Hanne Platteeuw, Catherine Plenevaux, Manon Portera, Timothée Raviol, David Regnier, Sylvain Regout, Bernardo Robles Hidalgo, Tim Rottiers, Tom Schoonjans, Margot Schurmans, Tine Seghers, Sophie Seys, Celeste Ivon Suarez, Emilie Thabard, Ian Tshimbila, Sandrine Tonnoir, Daniel Van Drimmelen, Florence Vaes, Zoe van der Pas, Adeline Van Hoof, Giulia Caterina Verga, Vincent Vergote, Jeroen Verrecht, Robrecht Verstraete, André Warnier, Arthur Wéry, Kent Wilson, Jean-François Wyseur, Uri Wegman, Beate Zavadska, Benedikte Zitouni            Rotor asbl-vzw
58 rue Prévinairestraat
1070 Brussels
info@rotordb.org
+3222180170 

Brussels

Belgium

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Rotor is a cooperative design practice that investigates the organisation of the material environment. They develop critical positions through research and design. Besides projects in architecture and interior design, they also produce exhibitions, books, economic models and policy proposals.

ROTOR

<p>ROTOR's optic is to reuse construction elements that already exist and have had a lifetime, but are part of buildings that will be destroyed/renovated/changed and therefore considered nowadays usually as waste. ROTOR chooses indoor and structural elements to remove and save for future creations. It about redesigning and circularity of materials. </p>