Foundations: The Circular-Economy Worldview Applied to Buildings

Circular construction starts with a sorting problem. Before a project can choose a reversible connection, material passport, reuse marketplace, or finance instrument, it has to know which material route it is trying to protect and what baseline it is replacing.

These entries set that ground vocabulary:

• Butterfly Diagram (Technical and Biological Cycles) separates circular claims into technical loops that preserve products and biological loops that return safe nutrients.
• R-Strategies (R0–R9 / 9R Framework) ranks circular interventions by retained value and intervention depth.
• Linear Construction (the “Take-Make-Demolish” Baseline) names the one-way material path circular practice is replacing.
• Embodied Carbon (vs Operational Carbon) distinguishes carbon stored in materials and processes from carbon emitted during operation.
• Whole-Life Carbon Assessment locates carbon claims across product, construction, use, end-of-life, and reuse/recovery stages.
• Buildings as Material Banks (BAMB) treats standing buildings as recoverable stocks rather than future waste.