Spatial Simulation LabData concerning the material composition of the building stock in Vienna is still very scarce. Various mixes of building materials have been used in a multitude of constructive ways, and significant changes were made over the years. This is a problem sincethose buildings nowadays act as candidates for demolition and new construction which accounts for 70% of annual waste in Austria; the building sector is furthermore accountable for 60% of all newly extracted resources and produces 40% of all energy-related CO2 emissions.
To make effective recycling and re-use possible and thus provide a significant contribution to the climate strategy, a comprehensive knowledge on material composition is needed. Until now property developers have conducted individual probing andsurveying in such buildings without any plausibility analysis or “reality check” that takes similar buildings into account. Furthermore, the results of these activities are not used in subsequent projects, which is a pitty because re-using this data could inform amultitude of other stakeholders and furthermore could serve as a robust basis for a city-wide extrapolation.
We propose to develop a web-based platform that can inform property developers over likely material compositions for comparable buildings and furthermore offers the possibility to check own probes for plausibility. The idea works like a data hub in whichparticipants enter probes/surveys in their own private area. The platform uses this data to learn to predict similar buildings in order to be able also asses buildings that have not yet been surveyed. Additionally the platform compares buildings with each otherin order to conduct a plausibility check as feedback to each participant. The main benefit of this approach is that the hub gets more accurate over time since it continuously learns from its participants – which in turn acts as an incentive for participation. Anneutral and open interface for material and re-use stores further contributes to the benefit. In the project, we also emphasize an integration with communal processes (e.g. building permit) and the provision of a repeatable data transformation workflow thatcan be used even after the project has ended.
The envisioned openly available solution is not only targeted at property developers, but also public administration i.e. the municipality, standardisation bodies, professional associations, research institutions and businesses that deal with circular economy(re-use and recycling). In the long term, operation of our platform is envisioned to shift to public bodies (City of Vienna IT; Chamber of Architects and Engineers) in order to ensure open participation.
