Waugh Thistleton Architects

Kirsten is in Tartu to mark the successful installation of the WOODCIRCLES Travelling Demonstrator at the Estonian National Museum.

Woodcircles is a four-year European research project exploring how timber can be recovered, reused and designed for multiple lives in construction. As a key project partner, Waugh Thistleton has been developing circular building systems that bring together material reuse, component-based design and Design for Manufacture, Assembly and Disassembly.

The travelling demonstrator puts this research into practice.

Designed by Waugh Thistleton in collaboration with the Woodcircles project partners, the pavilion is formed from a modular kit of mass timber components, including GLT columns and beams, and CLT wall and floor panels.

New timber is used alongside directly reused structural elements and panels incorporating timber recovered from demolition. Reversible connections allow the components to be assembled, dismantled and reconfigured repeatedly, extending their useful life beyond a single building or application.

Tartu is the first full assembly and disassembly test of the system. From here, the demonstrator will travel to Turin and Rotterdam before completing its journey at the Danish Technological Institute in Denmark. At each location the same kit of parts will be assembled in a different configuration, allowing the Woodcircles team to test the practical implications of circular construction through manufacture, transport, assembly, disassembly and reuse.

The project demonstrates how buildings can be designed from the outset as material banks, with components that retain their value and can continue to be used over multiple life cycles.

It is great to see the first iteration built and in use in Tartu.