Dynamics of Collaboration in Construction Projects to Set and Realize Circular Ambitions

Mart van Uden is a PhD researcher based at the Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment, in the department of Management in the Built Environment (MBE), under the supervision of Prof.dr.ir Hans Wamelink, Prof.dr.ir Ellen van Bueren, and dr.ir Erwin Heurkens. He works as part of the TranCiBo research group, a collaboration between research from Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and TU Delft. Together they research the transition towards a circular economy in the architecture, engineering, and construction sector with a focus on collaborative behavior and routinized practices. Mart’s work is routed in Sustainability Transitions Research and Social Practice Theory with additions from organizational sciences. TranCiBo uses a combination of interviews, observations, and action research for data gathering in case studies of construction projects and programs, and workshops with a wide range of actors working in and around construction projects with circular ambitions. This video focuses on the dynamics in construction projects that help set and realize circular ambitions.

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Main Takeaways

  • There are at least fourteen dynamics that help actors in construction projects to set and realize circular ambitions.
  • These fourteen dynamics each fall under one of three categories: Prerequisites, Temporal Dynamics and Contextual Influences and play a key role in setting and realizing circular ambitions in construction projects.
  • Under Prerequisites one finds: Top-down Support, Partnership Based on Increased Equality, Shared Circular Goals, and Intrinsically Motivated People.
  • Under Temporal Dynamics one finds: Transparency and Trust, Flexibility, Reciprocal Relations, Project Team Identity, Struggle for New Roles, Pioneering Leadership, and Continuity in Staffing.
  • Under Contextual Influences one finds: Sector and Organizational Cultures, Knowledge Flows, and Power and Tensions.

Further Reading

  • Kooter, E., Uden, M. v., Marrewijk, A. v., Wamelink, H., Bueren, E. v., & Heurkens, E. (2021). Sustainability transition through dynamics of circular construction projects. Sustainability, 13(21), 12101.

Author

Mart van Uden
Mart van Uden
PhD Researcher

Mart van Uden holds a BSc and MSc in Architecture from the Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment at TU Delft. He is a critical and open-minded scholar, specialized in the transition towards a more circular construction sector. His focus is on construction projects and the routinized practices that influence them. In these practices, his research centers around different types of behavior, group dynamics, functional and economic structures and laws and regulations, and how all of these affect the transition. 

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Circularity for Educators

The platform is intended to provide with content on either circularity or pedagogy for and about circularity. It is one of the outcomes of the Circular Impulse Initiative (CII), a project intending to enhance the integration of circularity in the Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment education. The platform mainly aims to help tutors get better acquainted with circularity in the built environment by providing a series of resources on this subject that they can either view to get better informed or directly share with their students in class or online. A large number of the Faculty's professors and researchers have contributed substantially both in creating a coherent narrative for circularity in the built environment as well as further elaborating on different aspects of it. Besides this one, a new platform for interaction and direct exchange was also established in parallel that we call ‘Educators for Circularity‘. This one offers the opportunity for all of us to meet and share our experiences and learn from one another.

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