Last week, the 16th and 17th of March, the Reincarnate team met at partner Austrian Standards’ premises in Vienna to celebrate its second General Assembly.
The aim was to gather all 16 organizations working on the project to discuss the project’s status and plan the strategies for the upcoming six months. Project Coordinator, Timo Hartmann, led the discussions, which were focused on the project’s technical aspects, such as the ontology, CP-IM platform, the 10 Reincarnate Innovations and demonstrations, and the communication and dissemination activities to widely raise awareness of the project objectives and outcomes. In addition, representatives of the partner organizations had the chance to voice their opinions and ask for more detailed information on progress and plans.
On the first day, the team presented the digital, environmental, and social innovations advancements. The meeting started with the presentation of the status of the CP-IM platform, which will provide a digital representation of building materials and products with information on their life cycle, assessing their potential for life extension and reuse, and predicting circular value streams. Writing user stories about the innovations, creating a list of data sources per demonstration, and filling these use cases within the platform are the specific actions the team will take, considering that the launch version is already working.
After showcasing the platform, every project partner working on the ten innovations explained the progress made. Then, partners responsible for each of the 7 Work Packages followed the presentations of their developments with innovative elevator pitches. In general, all members are progressing in implementing the project and creating technical and social creative means to reuse and maximize the life cycle of buildings, construction products and materials.
To make the most of the visit, Austrian Standards organized a presentation of the city of Vienna and its path to sustainability. Bernadette Luger, Head of the Coordination Unit for Resource Conservation and Sustainability in the Construction Sector, showcased the efforts made by the city council in the last years and how they will meet the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
At the second part of the session, Samaneh Rezvani from partner Demo Consultants enlightened the team with an explanation of ontology and why it is needed. Samaneh Rezvani underlined, “Current monitoring frameworks cannot inform the decision-making process. An ontology facilitates data exchange allows automated reasoning, and ensures concept, data and metric reusability and interoperability.”
To end the first day on a high note, researchers from partner Technical University of Delft (TUD) conducted a workshop to reflect on how to evaluate the decision criteria for the adaptive reuse of buildings. They divided the team into three groups. The aim was to debate the ten most important decision criteria, evaluation methods, indicators, data and information. Dr Angela Greco from TUD affirmed: “In Buddhism, new life is determined by the actions carried out in previous lives. In Reincarnate, we are finding ways to give new lives to existing constructions supporting the European Union climate action pathways to decarbonization.”
The second day of the meeting started with the technical board team – responsible for the day-to-day progress of the project – followed by the standardization and demonstrators’ panels. The main takeaways of these last talks were the joint review of the Standardization Plan of the project and the assessment of our eleven pilots across Europe.
In the horizon, the first review meeting of the European Commission that will take place next year. Therefore, the plan for our concrete results starts from now on.
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