Circularity in Design

REFLECTION

The architecture and interior design industries have an enormous opportunity, and responsibility, to rethink how we create the spaces around us. Buildings and interiors consume significant resources and generate tremendous amounts of waste. Estimates suggest that the built environment accounts for roughly 35% of the world's solid waste and 40% of global carbon dioxide emissions.

Circularity in design challenges the traditional design → build → dispose model. Instead, it asks us to make intentional decisions from the very beginning: Can this material be reused? Can it be disassembled? Can it be recycled or regenerated? What happens to it at the end of its useful life?

This is a fundamental shift in how we approach design. Rather than selecting materials based primarily on upfront cost, circular design considers the entire lifecycle of a product or building component.

What Does Circularity Look Like in Practice?

Last fall, I was having a conversation with Kathryn Soter, Executive Director of Good Future Design Alliance, about the high end residential market and the volume of usable stone removed from kitchens and bathrooms. We were discussing the extraction of the stone from the earth and if we, as humans, are disrespectful in how we continue to fill landfills with this material (although some is recycled). We mused about ways it could be removed and reused, eliminating glues and using some sort of peg system, and having a warehouse of used stone. (Kathryn is working on a "Low Impact Design Guide"!)

Masonry is now being fabricated for dry lay install, which means it can be disassembled and reused. Other companies like FRONT use construction debris as the base for their masonry units; they call them "WasteBasedBricks."

Biodegradable upholstery offers another interesting development. Vinyl has historically been widely used in healthcare, education, hospitality, and restaurant environments because of its durability and cleanability. But conventional vinyl is a petroleum-based material associated with microplastics and environmental concerns.

Newer alternatives are beginning to challenge that assumption. Hyphyn, for example, is a coated upholstery designed to perform similarly to vinyl while incorporating an enzyme intended to enable biodegradation under landfill conditions, even without sunlight. Products such as these demonstrate that performance and environmental responsibility do not necessarily have to be opposing goals. Manufacturers and brands such as Pallas Textiles and Wolf-Gordon are part of this evolving conversation.

Mohawk Group's Hero Rubber is another compelling example. This resilient rubber flooring, appropriate for applications such as gyms, playrooms, and fitness centers, incorporates ground-up Nike tennis shoes. Instead of viewing discarded material as waste, the product turns it into a component of a new flooring system.

One of my long-time favorites, cork, used for centuries, remains a powerful example of naturally renewable design. Harvested from the bark of cork oak trees without cutting down the tree itself, cork can regenerate and continue producing material over its lifetime. While material technology is evolving, the industry itself is often slow to change.

I frequently think about the history of VOC reduction and elimination in our industry. For years, the conversation around healthier materials was met with a familiar objection: "The alternatives just aren't as good."

Recently, I was at a construction site for a residential development in Denver that was being marketed as a "wellness" project. Yet during my visit, the VOC emissions from the roofing process were so strong that they could be smelled nearly a half block away. I keep thinking about the misalignment.

Commitment to wellness, sustainability, or environmental responsibility must be more than a marketing strategy. Authentic collaborative teams need to commit and not only hold each other accountable but provide varying perspectives and options to reach shared goals. There has to be an intentionality from the beginning to the end of the process.

Circularity gives us an opportunity to design not only for how a space looks and performs today, but also for what happens in the future.