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  • RhinoCircular shortlisted for Zumtobel Group Award: Prize for Innovation

    We are honored and excited to announce that RhinoCircular has been shortlisted for a Prize for Innovation at the 2021 Zumtobel Group Award for Sustainability and Humanity in the Built Environment. From the public invitation to participate, a total of 220 projects have been registered from 42 countries, all of which stand out for their exceptional quality and originality. In a pre-selection, ten projects have now been shortlisted in each category.

  • CCL awarded Atkinson Academic Venture Fund for MycoBuilt research

    Exciting news!
    The Circular Construction Lab and its partners have been awarded an Atkinson Academic Venture Fund for its project proposal MycoBuilt: Enabling Circular Construction with Fungi-Based Materials. MycoBuilt represents a cross-disciplinary research collaboration leveraging the expertise of biologists, engineers, architects and economists from Cornell University and external industry partners to develop both new technologies and a new architectural language combining the specific qualities and potential of urban (construction) and rural (agricultural) waste streams with the incredible potential of fungal mycelium.

  • Felix Heisel recipient of inaugural Kuan and Wu Research Fund for Innovation and Sustainability

    Sustainable design and construction require holistic thinking across a wide variety of topics and fields: Socio-cultural, economic, ecological, functional and aesthetic, local as well as global factors must be considered and understood as equivalent and interacting with one another. This complexity makes it impossible to convey simplified recipes and answers, or suggest generally valid applications. Sustainable design and construction are rather the result of an unbiased, critical perspective and, consequently, a personal attitude towards the task – based on empirical values from one’s own experimental activities and a comparatively broad foundational knowledge base on topics of sustainability. Supported generously by the inaugural Kuan and Wu Research Fund for Innovation and Sustainability, The Circular Construction Lab sets out to compile such a knowledge base for the students (and faculty) of Cornell AAP and the Department of Architecture.

  • CI:RCLE – Circular Ithaca: Researching Construction in the Local Economy

    The Circular Construction Lab, together with the Cornell SC Johnson College of Business has been awarded an Engaged Cornell public purpose research grant. We are happy and proud, and excited to combine our research and teaching within this exciting project!

  • New Article published in Journal Sustainability

    Kakkos, Efstathios, Felix Heisel, Dirk E. Hebel, and Roland Hischier. 2020. “Towards Urban Mining—Estimating the Potential Environmental Benefits by Applying an Alternative Construction Practice. A Case Study from Switzerland.” Sustainability 12 (12): 5041.

  • Early-Design Plugin: RhinoCircular

    CCL has began development of a Rhinoceros / Grasshopper Plugin named RhinoCircular to evaluate material circularity in the early phases of building / concept design. The tool is targeting students and professionals alike – and will be used in Cornell AAP’s architecture education, as well as CCL’s research.

  • Madaster Education Platform at Cornell AAP

    MoU signed with Madaster Education Platform

    Select design studio courses in the Department of Architecture and the lab’s research will assess and evaluate the Madaster Educational Platform based on their effect on teaching circular design and construction.

  • The Materials Book

    The Materials Book by Ruby Press has been released including two chapter contributions by Felix Heisel: Reuse and Recycling: Materializing a Circular Economy, as well as Cultivated Building Materials: The Forth Industrial Revolution?.