REVERSIBLE EXPERIENCE MODULES (REMS)

Published on September 2, 2022

Developed by EPEA Netherlands, the Reversible Experience Modules (REMs) form a traveling interactive exhibition on circular building, which displays 70 products and systems designed for reuse, recovery, and recycling in circular buildings. Each material and product inside the REMs exhibition is available on the market and labelled with a Materials Passport. Visitors of the exhibit can manipulate the products and gain direct access to the online Materials Passport data for each by scanning the product’s QR code with their phone. The REMs project highlights the importance of material passports. They provide data that helps prevent waste, improve resource productivity, and reduce emissions. The exhibition provides tangible means for professionals from the built environment to interact and discover the integration of the passports, healthy materials, and reversible design. The team has tested the understanding of the passports as a source of valuable interchangeable data to be used within different construction phases. Promote the benefits and the use of Materials Passports by providing direct access to the Materials Passports Platform through the different construction products displayed in the exhibition. Improve and test the upscaling potential of a transformable and adaptable kit-of-parts exhibition module. Based on the experience in other industries, digitalisation is expected to drive innovative disruption in the construction industry. By exploring the relationship between physical products and the related digital data, REMs, the largest traveling exhibition on circular building materials in Europe, supports the prospect of the development of new business models, potential new players, and new market opportunities.

The pilot has been assembled and disassembled six times with almost no waste production. A small set up was presented at Brussels Environment HQ, early 2018. The first full-size construction was presented at Ecobuild, in London in March 2018. In spring 2018, it travelled to Watford, UK and Building Holland. The set up was redesigned for the Dutch Design Week in Eindhoven, just before arriving in Westerlo, Belgium. The exhibition gathered insightful feedback for the improvement of the BAMB passports ICT platform. Outputs include:

1. Improvement of the BAMB passports ICT platform.

2. Development of solutions to link the data from the ICT platform with the physical material or element (QR Codes, etc.).

3. Reversible Design solutions: The structure itself was designed and built applying a reversible building design approach. The assembly, disassembly and relocation of the exhibition (six times during one year), showcased the reversibility of the whole setup and its adaptability to different configurations.

This case study is directly related to the work of the OPN SBC programme.