A circular approach

Thinking the city differently

The Fund has developed its visions and objectives to provide a framework for its future designs, thereby expressing its desire to live up to its responsibility and to pass on a positive heritage to future generations. This global strategy relates to housing, the development of the outdoor spaces, mobility and the diversity of local businesses. To deploy it, the Kirchberg Fund is taking inspiration from the principles of the circular economy.

Given this logic, it is vital to initiate construction projects in a different way. It is no longer simply a question of discussing the number and floor areas of the real estate units and their profitability, but of starting with their qualities. What materials should be used, to create healthy homes? What systems make it possible to collect rainwater and to reuse different qualities of water? What means are available to the engineers to ensure that buildings produce energy, instead of merely consuming it? What are the most flexible models of building in terms of time and adaptability to the needs of future generations of residents? How can certain equipment be shared? What external developments contribute to the well-being of people and nature?

The challenge is to make the districts ready for the changes of tomorrow, more flexible and therefore resilient. The city of tomorrow should adapt readily to economic, demographic, climatic, and health upheavals, etc.

For the development of the new districts, the Fund has defined values and objectives in order to encourage projects with a positive impact on quality of life, which bring value-added for human beings and nature, in place of projects which only satisfy minimum criteria. The vision: Living well in an urban setting in symbiosis with its environment. 

At the planning stage, these objectives translate into a “roadmap” for each project that maps out the following issues: air, water, food, construction, well-being and happiness, nature, energy, mobility and money.