Projects

The Collaborative Research Center (SFB) 1683 was established by the German Research Foundation (DFG) to answer the question of how resource- and emission-intensive concrete construction can be transformed into a sustainable circular construction method. To this end, existing buildings are being reused according to plan. The core idea is structural reuse as a subcomponent (module) rather than material recycling, since recycling concrete requires “smashing” the existing structure and adding new cement. Instead, existing structures are deliberately deconstructed using saws or high-pressure water jets into subcomponents such as slabs, walls, or beams, inspected non-destructively, refurbished, and then reassembled into new structures in a modular fashion. Foundations remain in place. They serve as attractors for the structures and are reinforced with bio-based materials if necessary.

To this end, the SFB is divided into three project groups. Project group A deals with new modular structures made from existing modules, project group B with the characterization of the current state of the existing components, and project group C with the overall process, taking sustainability and automation into account. The supporting and central subprojects include the integrated graduate college (MGK), central information management (INF), and the central project (Z) together with the demonstrators.