Circular cities are more than efficient material flows
In this publication, we argue that circular cities cannot be made by treating waste, energy, water, buildings and public space as separate technical problems. We approach circularity as a way of understanding the city as a changing system of material, social and spatial relationships. Drawing on urban metabolism, we ask how linear production and consumption can become more regenerative, connected and socially meaningful.
The circular-economy ambition is to preserve the utility and value of products, components and materials. But much circular practice remains too narrow, focused on an economic case, one material flow or a single component. That can miss the connections between energy, water, materials, behaviour and the wider spatial systems in which they operate. It can also overlook shrinking cities and regions, where the challenges and possibilities differ from fast-growing metropolitan areas.
Designing across scale, time and everyday use
For us, circularity has to operate across scales: components, buildings, open spaces, neighbourhoods, cities, territories and regions. It also has to account for time. Places change, uses overlap, and spaces can become temporary, shared, contested or renewed. Instead of seeking one final form, we propose open design practices that treat buildings, interfaces and collective spaces as conditions that can continue transforming.
We developed this perspective through design-by-research and research-through-design, using studios and case explorations in the Netherlands, Belgium, Argentina and elsewhere. The strategies include working between architecture and urbanism; studying typologies and their interfaces; treating informal and intermittent uses as resources; creating permeability around infrastructure; and connecting local interventions to wider territorial relationships.
Our proposition is social as well as environmental. Circular design should strengthen human and natural capital, leave room for collective action and spatial justice, and support new productive relationships and shared meanings. By accepting complexity and the changing life of places, circular cities can build resilience that is ecological, material and social at the same time.