While a graduate research assistant with the Circular Construction Lab at Cornell under Felix Heisel, I initiated the development of a CAD plugin for early design phase circularity analysis. Globally, architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) account for 39% of carbon dioxide emissions and more than 50% of extracted resources and waste. Circular economic thinking combats this unsustainable model by seeking to preserve those materials already in circulation. At the end of a building's life, instead of demolition and resignation to a landfill, its material stock can be disassembled intact and reused or recycled. In this way our built environment becomes a mine of material resources. However, not all components of a building can be salvaged, and careful documentation is required to ensure they achieve their maximum utility. RhinoCircular aims to aid in schematic assessments of this kind at the early design phase, helping to guide architects toward the most sustainable designs from the onset.

Most assessments of a building or product's adherence to circularity principles follow a model close to that of the Material Circularity Indicator (MCI) put forth by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation. Our plugin evaluates the MCI for buildings and products designed iņ the Rhinoceros 3d CAD software. This opens doors to parametric workflows, optimization and on-the-fly feedback. Our [[paper]] on the plugin's development was included in the AIA/ACSA Intersections Research Conference. The plugin and the underlying database are free to download. Food4Rhino