Zumtobel Group Award 2021

RhinoCircular, a CAD plugin developed within the Circular Construction Lab (CCL) at Cornell University, is a software tool to evaluate material circularity in the early phases of concept design. It assesses a building design’s environmental impact with respect to its embodied carbon values and circularity: the degree to which design solutions minimise extraction and waste in favour of reusable, recyclable and renewable material resources. Activating the built environment as a material reserve would prevent up to 50% of the industry’s emissions by capitalising on embodied carbon. Thus, paradigm shifts in how we design and construct buildings are needed, and in how resources are managed within the built environment. Buildings and regions need to anticipate stocks and flows of materials, documenting and communicating which materials in what quantities and qualities become available for reuse or recycling where and when.

RhinoCircular allows direct and immediate feedback on design decisions regarding formal deliberations, structural considerations, material selection and detailing based on material passports and circularity indicators. It can be integrated in existing and complex workflows and is compatible with industry standard databases while providing its own essential dataset.

Embedded into Rhinoceros3D software, the tool consists of several components that can be combined or connected to suit the specific needs of a proposed project in any design phase or on any level of detail. RhinoCircular interacts with climate and energy simulation workflows. The circularity indicator itself is a number between 0 and 1 calculated from parameters such as lifespan, efficiency of recycling and fraction of feedstock taken from renewable, recycled or reused sources. Values of interest, computed parameters or a combination of both can be provided by the user, further organised by construction, use or end-of-use phases. Results are displayed directly in the modelling environment.

The jury awards the Special Prize for Innovation to the early-design plugin RhinoCircular developed by the Circular Construction Lab at Cornell University. The software encapsulates expert knowledge and represents a scalable solution for the design of buildings, allowing designers and architects to make considerations around embodied carbon, circularity, and choice of material at a very early design stage.
RhinoCircular lets you, for example, design a facade with particular material options and then, based on your choice, create multiple design variations. Afterwards, you can compare and evaluate your design options and choose the solution with the lowest embodied carbon impact. Making these decisions in the early phases can have a significant environmental impact rather than making them later when there are limited possibilities to change the design.

Out of all the great projects submitted in both categories, the jury agreed that RhinoCircular was the most scalable as it also applies to multiple industries. It is not limited to design and construction but could also be applied to product development.

We are experiencing a paradigm shift away from a linear economy to a circular economy, and this will have a major impact on construction, architecture and design. Therefore, it is essential to provide a solution that allows people without expert knowledge to include these low-threshold considerations into their design process. By creating a software that enables a more sustainable way to sketch and work with the initial design, RhinoCircular addresses the urgent challenge of climate change and creates infinite potential for real change.