How can buildings remain attractive and useful 30, 50 or 100 years from now? This summer, Chalmers researcher Elena Malakhatka brought that question to Almedalen Week. This autumn, the discussion continues at Chalmers, as Materials for Tomorrow brings together researchers and industry to explore the future of building materials.
– I love the smell of tar.
In Visby, the question of how we build for the future took an unexpected turn towards a material that has been used for centuries. At the Swedish National Heritage Board’s laboratory, Elena Malakhatka became fascinated by tar, long used to protect buildings.
Elena Malakhatka is a researcher and project manager at ▶ Chalmers Next Labs, where she leads ▶ Marievik+, a Vinnova-funded innovation project. The project brings together municipalities, property owners, construction companies, materials suppliers and researchers around a question that goes far beyond tar: how can we make better use of the buildings and materials we already have?
– We all talk about sustainability and circularity. But it is not just about building with new materials and new technologies. We also need to ask ourselves: What do we already have?
Marievik+ explores how buildings and urban environments can remain in use for longer and adapt as needs change. The challenge is familiar to the construction and property sectors: while new buildings continue to be built, large amounts of existing space stand empty or are not fully used.
In Stockholm, Elena Malakhatka points to Kräftriket, the former Royal Veterinary College area near Brunnsviken. When Stockholm University moved to Campus Albano, premises in the area were left vacant. Parts of the existing buildings are now being adapted for new uses.
The same issue appears in different forms across Sweden. As the number of school-age children declines, a school may need a new use. Housing that is needed today may need to serve different groups a few decades from now.
– How can we make sure that every square metre serves society in some way? And that instead of building more, we first rethink what already exists?
When needs change
Marievik+ combines work on economics, digital modelling and physical testing. The scenarios must not only be technically feasible, but economically viable.
For the construction and property sectors, the question is concrete. Student housing that is needed today may need to serve a different group a few decades from now. A school may need a new purpose as the number of pupils declines.
– How can we make sure that when we design a new building today, or repurpose an existing one, we already consider the second and third possible users of that space?
That requires more than a flexible floor plan.
– It sounds like a great idea. Easy, right? But in reality, we need to understand the regulations, the economics and the technical possibilities.
And someone has to pay.
– What is the real cost? What will the rent be? What is the business model?
Economics also affects which activities can find a place in the city. Museums, concert halls and other public and cultural institutions create values that are not necessarily captured by market rents and return requirements.
The question, then, is not only what a building costs, but what value it creates – and for whom.
The silos became visible at Almedalen
These were the questions Elena Malakhatka brought with her to Almedalen this summer. At the seminar Innovation in the built environment – new building recipes for an uncertain future, the discussion centred on how buildings can remain attractive and useful 30, 50 or 100 years from now – in a city where buildings had already exceeded that timescale by centuries.
Marievik+ was also presented there.
The panel brought together representatives from building materials, property development, finance and research.
– What really surprised me was how many silos we still have.
She describes a construction process in which architects, materials experts, property developers, contractors and economists work on different aspects of the same building, without their perspectives necessarily coming together.
– We learned a great deal from each other. We need to create more platforms where people can meet, instead of everyone remaining within their own field.
From the 1970s to the Middle Ages
I ask Elena Malakhatka whether the old buildings in Visby are more flexible than those we have built over the past 50 years. She takes issue with the choice of word.
– I would say they are rather more durable.
She compares a building from the 1970s with one that has stood since the Middle Ages.
– Why is the medieval building still appealing? It has more complexity and, I would say, more timelessness. At the same time, the old buildings have not remained untouched. Successive generations have continued to build on what was already there.
– Those who came later respected the previous generation's buildings, the craftsmanship and the way of building.
She compares them to geological layers.
– It is a way of thinking where you constantly try to build on and develop the structures that already exist. You don't see that as often in Swedish cities today, where we simply demolish things.
In Gothenburg, the same question is being raised in the debate over the future of the Valhalla swimming complex. An existing building is not simply a collection of materials with technical and economic value. It can also carry history, craftsmanship and memories.
Elena Malakhatka describes the existing building stock as both a material bank and a cultural and historical bank.
Tar and the churches
It was also in Visby that tar entered our conversation.
During the week, Elena Malakhatka visited the Swedish National Heritage Board's laboratory. Among other things, researchers there study the tar used to protect historic church buildings.
– If you don't use the right tar, if you choose a simpler or cheaper alternative, it can actually damage the artistic parts of the church.
Traditional materials, in other words, require modern research.
– We need to pay attention, to research, apply and experiment.
For Elena Malakhatka, materials are not only about technical properties.
– When we talk about materials, we often talk about physics and chemistry. But we forget that materials are also a way of expressing the values of a particular time. This is how human ideas are materialised at a particular point in time.
Materials and energy
A building's energy performance is part of the equation too.
– Materials and energy go hand in hand. Using less material does not automatically result in a better building.
Elena Malakhatka describes research in which the amount of concrete in a floor structure could be reduced by around 90 per cent. At first, the material saving looked like a major success.
But removing so much concrete also reduced the structure's ability to store heat and cold. The solution had to be revised, resulting in a smaller reduction in material use.
– We need to look at the system more holistically. A material can be optimised for a structural need while at the same time having a negative effect on energy use.
It is another example of the silos she describes. Materials, structures, energy and economics cannot be optimised separately if the building as a whole is to work.
From the material to the whole building
The same boundaries between disciplines are in focus when this year's ▶ Materials for Tomorrow conference at Chalmers turns its attention to building materials on 26–27 November.
The conference ranges from the properties of materials at the microscale to how they perform in real structures and societies over time. The ambition is to bring materials science together with the built environment, architecture, climate, AI and industry.
For Elena Malakhatka, the need is concrete. A material cannot be developed and optimised in isolation if a change also affects the building's structure, energy use, economics or ability to adapt over time.
Nature as more than a resource
There is also a personal starting point for Elena Malakhatka's approach to the built environment. With roots in Siberia, she has lived in several parts of the world and describes her relationship with forests and nature as one reason she wanted to stay in Sweden.
– I felt that I really needed to live in a place where nature is an important actor, an agent, and where people have a special relationship with it.
– This country has a very special relationship with nature. Nature is not seen only as a source of materials; its other aspects are valued too.
For her, the question of how we build for the future begins in much the same way. Not necessarily with what new things we can build.
– What do we already have?
