Through projects like Waterside and Nucleus, circular construction moves from ambition to reality. By designing modular products, reclaiming materials, and reusing them across projects, teams transform buildings with minimal waste and maximum value retention. Even when regulations and standards pose challenges, collaboration across the chain makes sustainable reuse possible. Discover how circular thinking is reshaping workspaces for the future.
Create Circular Workspaces
Create Circle Workspaces is part of how our company operates. It’s the way we work. For more than 35 years, we have ensured compatibility within our products, allowing us to work modularly, so that elements are reusable, and can also be used flexibly.
We work on this from product development and continue this in our take-back program since 2021, where we take back elements to be able to reuse them in other projects.
For us as architects, using sustainable products means taking into account the full life cycle of a material, so not only having materials that are environmentally friendly in the way they are manufactured, but also giving them the opportunity to be reused. - Benoît Jacques - Engineer Architect ALTIPLAN Architects
The challenges
When reusing materials, the challenge is that not everything can be reused. There are more and more different and often stricter standards. The standards within the different regions of Belgium also differ. In addition, reuse often requires more study work and study time, which can also be an additional challenge.
The Circular Projects
We often reuse materials with existing clients, during a renovation or during a move to a new building. With new clients, we often see that it aligns with the company’s core values, which focus strongly on sustainability. Or we see the request in public tenders coming up more and more.
Waterside is a beautiful example of the circular economy, because the building has undergone a change of function, from an office building to a school building, but with maximum preservation of existing materials. So the partitions, ceilings, floors all found their place in the new layout and were reused on site.
The materials we could not reuse here on site were taken back and prepared to be reused in other projects. Among others, The Nucleus in Zwijnaarde, essentially a meeting place, the heart of a technological center in Zwijnaarde, where a new building was erected, but with the request to apply as much existing material in the building as possible.
Circular Conclusion
To be able to build now and in the future in the most sustainable way possible, there is first of all a need for a uniform regulatory framework, but also for collaboration within the chain, and we would very much like to work on that together with other partners.
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Anne De Coninck
Sustainability Officer I Beddeleem
As a frontrunner in sustainable entrepreneurship, Beddeleem is committed to three goals: Create Circular Workspaces, Contribute to a Cool Planet, and Committed to People. With over 35 years of experience in circular solutions, we develop Cradle to Cradle-certified partitions designed for long-term reuse. The Take Climate Action label highlights our focus on CO₂ reduction and green innovation. At Beddeleem, sustainability extends beyond products and planet — we also invest in the wellbeing, safety, and growth of our people and stakeholders.
We believe collaboration and a clear framework are key to accelerating the transition to a sustainable built environment.