The Swan kindergarten is a gamechanger. It is the building using the largest percentage of recycled/upcycle materials which according to Ecolabelling Denmark makes it one of the most innovative building projects right now. It is built using the materials of the old school on the site. As integrated part of the eco-labeled and healthy building- and design process, we have developed and implemented the processes needed to map, recover, upcycle and reuse building materials directly on site. The processes have been included in the industry recommendations for circular economy in the built environment.

The starting point of the project was a thorough pre-demolition mapping of the materials in the existing buildings of Gladsaxe Old School on site. This process enabled the recovery of materials as part of the demolition.

This goal oriented and lean process was realized in close cooperation with a series of stakeholders including the client and demolishers. It materialized in a new tender process for a sustainable demolition, which was applauded by the Danish Association of Construction Clients (DACC) for being a valuable example of promoting and implementing circularity in the building industry. The demolishers are usually the last people an architect want to talk to, because it means end of life of the building. Here the conversations became the starting point of the design process. The outcome of this positive disruption was new methods and industry standards to qualify used building materials for upcycling based on existing standards which will save large quantities of resources moving forward.