The research tackles novel ways of Implementing circular economy principles in the building construction sector. With an increasing use of mass timber products, the amount of wood production waste is increasing as well. Wood production waste is typically downcycled and not considered as a resource for construction.

The project investigates alternatives for this practice in the form of waste wood upcycling. It presents a novel computational and digital fabrication workflow for the design and realization of structural building components using production wood-waste.

The developed workflow exclusively uses a given stock of a reclaimed or surplus material, and generates optimal design solutions. The computational workflow handles the various challenges that are linked to building with reused and surplus material, using genetic algorithms combined with structural analysis.

Serving as a proof-of-concept, a full-scale demonstrator prototype was built out of CLT door and window cutouts. The structure was exhibited at the ICSA2022  in Aalborg. An article presents the results and provides an overview of possible applications, discussing the potential of the workflow.