The Architectural League's Current Work is a lecture series featuring leading figures in the worlds of architecture, urbanism, design, and art.

As dismissal of embodied carbon—emissions generated during the manufacturing, transportation, and installation of building materials—continues to exacerbate the climate crisis, how can architecture rethink construction sustainably?

A design research program dedicated to advancing the construction industry from linear material consumption to a circular economy, the Circular Construction Lab (CCL) was founded by Felix Heisel in 2020 at Cornell University’s College of Architecture, Art, and Planning.

For CCL, circular construction includes activating the built environment as it currently exists for reuse and reconfiguration while designing and constructing buildings that can act as material depots for future assemblies.

At this lecture, Heisel will expand on circular construction and the reuse imperative, from CCL’s policy white paper on deconstruction and building material reuse for New York State to his work on residential structure prototypes designed for future disassembly across Europe.