It turns out that Brussels is the place to be if you are interested in recycling in construction. I had no idea!
Apparently, this comes from the frenzy of demolition-reconstruction-redemolition that goes on here – it even has a name, “Brusselization”. As a reaction against it, an architect’s collective called Rotor started advocating for an approach to designing buildings that takes responsibility for the materials sourced, and considers circular options by default. Since there was no thick market for recycled construction materials, Rotor ended up creating a separate company, Rotor Deconstruction (Rotor DC) to source them, supporting architects that want to build in a more circular way. Rotor DC is the company mentioned by our own architects as a supplier from which we can source recycled bricks for the façade of The Reef.
(Note: the article mentions a company called BC Materials which also exists, but, according to their websites, they focus on building with unfired earth sourced from the excavation of buildings’ foundations. I believe the authors actually mean RotorDC).