News

A team from EEA Grants Communication, more specifically from the Environment Program, visited LNEC regarding the CircularBuild project – Development and Validation of the Circularity Concept Applied to Modular Prefabricated Construction. The Environmental Program under EEA GrantsCircularBuild funded the CircularBuild.

The visit aimed to interview the researcher Armando Pinto, who worked on the project thorough the research of alternative materials that enable the circularity of the modular panel production system.

"We knew that some materials could be improved to address these issues of the circular economy and the environment," said the researcher.

With this modular prefabricated construction project, through the investigation of environmentally friendly materials that allow sustainable construction, significant results were also obtained in the behavior of the structures in case of an earthquake (tests in this context occurred in LNEC) and energy efficiency of the CircularBuild solution.

At the end, Armando Pinto highlighted that the CircularBuild project managed to materialize the concept of "Green Innovation": "LNEC has a very wide set of activities related to the construction of buildings. We are aware of the difficulties of building quickly, with quality, and complying with all legal requirements, therefore, anything that has to do with improving prefabricated construction is important to us."

The carbon footprint was reduced from the beginning of the production process until the end of the construction cycle, resulting in a house without the need for heating or cooling (energetically responsible).

LNEC was one of the entities taking part of the CircularBuild consortium by ensuring the knowledge, and physical and technical means for the functional validation of new materials and this new solution that is based on an emerging technology.