Designing with recovered precast concrete elements

In The Netherlands, two shortcomings of the country’s building stock have become increasingly prevalent in recent years: high vacancy rates of office buildings (8.2% as of 2022 and a high demand for residential buildings (shortage of up to 315,000 dwellings as of 2022). This paper investigates how the reuse of whole precast concrete elements from office buildings can lead to more sustainable residential building designs. As a case study, suitable ‘donor’ office buildings and an apartment building design are identified. First, the apartment building design is modified to employ as many suitable recovered elements as possible (while maintaining the original building geometry). This leads to a 69% reduction of new concrete used and a 46% reduction of CO2 output. Second, the design is adjusted to an optimal grid layout for maximal component reuse. This further improves the outcome to 90% and 60% respectively.