Are Buildings Designed to Die? How Circular Construction Could Save Our Cities – Ep 97 with Felix Heisel
In this episode of Better Buildings for Humans, host Joe Menchefski welcomes Felix Heisel, Director of Cornell University’s Circular Construction Lab, for a deep dive into why designing for disassembly could transform our built environment—and our economy. Felix unpacks how buildings account for 50% of all extracted materials and 41% of global CO₂ emissions, and explains why rethinking end-of-life strategies is critical. They explore the concept of buildings as material banks, the power of local reuse over global recycling, and why a Lego-like approach to construction can unlock new jobs, preserve cultural heritage, and eliminate waste. From policy innovations in New York State to the promise of salvaged timber grading, this conversation reveals how circular construction can create healthier cities—and a more resilient future.
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More About Felix Heisel
Felix Heisel is an Assistant Professor and the Director of the Circular Construction Lab at Cornell University's College of Architecture, Art, and Planning. He is a faculty fellow at the Cornell Atkinson Center for Sustainability and a graduate field member in architecture, systems engineering, and design technology. Heisel is a licensed architect in Germany and partner of 2hs Architekten und Ingenieur PartGmbB, an office specialized in the development of circular prototypologies. Heisel’s scholarship focuses on a systemic redesign of the built environment as a material depot of endless use and reconfiguration. He has received various awards for his work and published several books and articles on the topic, including Building Better- Less-Different: Circular Construction and Circular Economy( Birkhäuser,2022); Urban Mining und kreislaufgerechte sBauen(Urban Mining and Circular Construction, Fraunhofer IRB, 2021); Cultivated Building Materials(Birkhäuser, 2017), and Building from Waste(Birkhäuser, 2014).
Heisel graduated from the Berlin University of the Arts and has been teaching and researching at universities around the world, including the Berlage Institute, the Ethiopian Institute of Architecture, Building Construction, and City Developments, the Future Cities Laboratory Singapore; ETH Zürich; and Harvard GSD. The Circular Construction Lab(CCL)at Cornell University’s College of Architecture, Art, and Planning houses a design research program that advances the paradigm shift from linear material consumption towards a circular economy within an industrialized construction industry.
At the intersection of architecture, engineering, material and computer science, as well as economics, the lab investigates new concepts, methods, and processes to (1) design and construct buildings as the material depots for future construction, and (2) activate the potential of the built environment as an 'urban mine' for today's construction. CCL understands architecture as part of a regenerative and restorative cycle and sees design as a vehicle that can advance this ambition with excellence in teaching and research. Through close collaborations with academic, industrial, and legislative/ political partners, the lab ensures the relevance of its work and promotes the direct and full-scale implementation of research results towards a more sustainable, low/ no-carbon, circular construction industry.
CONTACT:
http://ccl.aap.cornell.edu
https://www.linkedin.com/in/felix-heisel/
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