Dutch architecture firm UNStudio has unveiled plans for The Kyklos building, a mixed-use office building in Belval, Luxembourg, designed in collaboration with local studio HYP Architects.
Aiming to create a building with the "smallest possible carbon footprint", the studios implemented a hybrid construction approach of concrete and 100 per cent recycled steel, using a sustainable-design framework developed by UNStudio to calculate and monitor the building's carbon impact.
This includes the 'carbon builder' ? a tool that allows designers to study various construction options to reduce the carbon footprint at an early stage of the design process.
UNStudio has designed a low-carbon office building in Belval
"The Carbon Builder is a software tool we are developing at UNStudio that allows our designers to begin testing options for, and fixing, carbon objectives to our earliest design concepts," studio founder Ben van Berkel told Dezeen. "We created it because we realised how essential it is to begin measuring the embodied carbon of a design as early as possible."
Using the tool, the studio determined that a hybrid construction solution offered a better long-term carbon performance in comparison to other methods ? stating that "timber is not always the best option".
The structure will be built from concrete and recycled steel
The Kyklos building by UNStudio and HYP Architects will form the "centrepiece" of the Belval masterplan ? ...