Zurich – A building constructed by students at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETH) using materials from demolished pavilions has been honored with an Arc Award. Every year, the Swiss Building Documentation presents the Arc Award to the best buildings in Switzerland.
In a practical teaching project, students at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich(ETH) used materials from the demolished Huber Pavilions to construct a building in line with the principles of the circular economy. According to a press release, the Re-Use Pavilion on the ETH Hönggerberg campus has been honored with the Arc Award in the Next Generation category. With the Arc Award, presented for the first time in 2012, the Swiss Building Documentation annually honors the best buildings in Switzerland.
In summer 2022, three temporary wooden buildings – the “Huber Pavilions” – had to make way for a new building on the ETH Hönggerberg campus. The CircÛbi teaching project took advantage of this opportunity, according to a press release from ETH. Under the joint leadership of two ETH professors, civil engineer Catherine De Wolf and architect Momoyo Kaijima, students collected the structural elements or components of the dismantled teaching buildings in order to reuse the materials according to the principle of the circular economy. Around 30 students worked on the project for an entire semester. They inventoried the components with lasered QR codes and thus created a digitized interface. This made it possible to create a new building from reused timber components.
The jury particularly appreciated the fact that this study project was developed in cooperation with various disciplines. “Circular construction requires collaborative creation: Bridging different disciplines and using digital technologies are urgently needed to spread the principles of the circular economy in the construction sector,” civil engineer Catherine De Wolf is quoted as saying. ce/gba
