As a material supplier, Facadeclick responds to the trend of reversible building by using an HDPE connector and snap together its bricks instead of using mortar or glue. Thanks to the adapted facing bricks and the connecting pieces, a façade wall can be built as using Lego. This means that the wall can be dismantled, and the stones recovered and reused. To accelerate the transition towards a truly circular use of this system, and offer Facadeclick as a service, the partners of this Open Call project want to solve three challenges, a legal, economic and financial one.

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Today, a facade becomes an immovable part of the estate by its intended use, hampering new ownership structures such as leasing. However, building with Facadeclick, the facade can easily be dismantled and disconnected from the building. We want to investigate the legal implications of taking back material, in particular the impact on property rights.

Currently a client buys a façade assuming it will be worthless one day. However, considering its reusability Facadeclick is expected to have a residual value at the end of the functional lifetime of the building. But how do we determine this value? Based on a life cycle costing method and a total cost of ownership perspective VUB Architectural Engineering investigates the residual value of the system.

Finally, the project partners are developing the larger business model in which this façade is fostered to be reused. With an adapted legal framework and estimated residual value, the most important barriers might be removed, but still the puzzle must be made. A new value proposition will make clear who shares in the losses when bricks cannot be reused and how capital gains will be redistributed on the brick's (re)valorization.

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