Bringing circularity to social housing: in conversation with Noémie Bernard

NOÉMIE BERNARD
Director of Urban Planning and Renewal at Seqens

In the Paris suburbs, a groundbreaking social housing complex has become the world’s first building made from fully recycled concrete. The project – called “Recygénie” – helps the Paris region reach its housing goals, while raising the bar for sustainable construction.

Recygénie was built through a partnership between Seqens and Holcim. Seqens is a mission-driven company that works to provide high-quality housing throughout the Paris region. At Holcim, we supported that mission by supplying a custom concrete made with our ECOCycle technology. This enabled us to recycle local construction demolition materials into new building solutions. Our collaboration built one of Europe’s most innovative housing projects.

Noémie Bernard, Director of Urban Planning and Renewal at Seqens, spoke with us about the game-changing project and the lessons learned about decarbonizing the building industry.

What was the impetus behind Recygénie?

Just outside of Paris, in the Brunoy neighborhood of Gennevilliers, there was a block of 166 housing units that did not fit into the surrounding urban environment. The commune decided to demolish the building and redevelop the site to better serve the community.

Sequins was interested in this project because our main objective is to provide high-quality solutions that support environmental and social aims. Here our goal was to increase the number of social housing units in the neighborhood and diversify the housing options available. We also used intentional design to effectively integrate the project into the surrounding neighborhood.

Recygénie’s success is thanks to a combination of factors. Firstly, Seqens has serious ambitions to create sustainable cities and is committed to projects that advance those aims. Secondly, Holcim’s experts had conducted relevant research and wanted to test the practical application of their innovations. Thirdly, the proposed site redevelopment made the whole project possible, since we could reuse the materials left behind from the demolition of the previous building.

How did you prioritize sustainability ON THIS project?

Notably, we were able to reuse the concrete from the demolition of the previous building. We attach great importance to the issue of material circularity and these construction demolition materials became a valuable resource for us. As a leading social housing constructor in Île-de-France, we have a responsibility to consider our environmental impact. We’re always trying to find ways to minimize our use of natural resources and minimize our overall impact on the environment. With Holcim’s help, we were able to build using 100% recycled concrete, which allowed us to save 6 000 tons of natural resources.

This project also contributes to the sustainable cities of tomorrow, by contributing to research and verifying the feasibility of Holcim’s ideas. By advancing such research, we can help to develop industries in such a way as to reduce their impact on our ecosystems. Now that we’ve demonstrated the potential of building with fully recycled concrete, we can move on to verifying its replicability and scalability, which could really move the industry forward.

What value did Holcim bring to this project?

We chose Holcim as our partner because it was the only company really committed to the idea of a fully recycled concrete real estate project. And Holcim experts developed the solution that allowed us to create just that. Our partnership was key to realizing this project.

In general, large suppliers such as Holcim have the capacity to offer sustainable solutions, to advance research and scale the products they offer on the market. We need these major suppliers to provide recycled materials that enable us to limit our use of natural resources and impact on local ecosystems. This is also necessary for developing sustainable material supply chains and making innovative solutions economically viable in the long term.

How has Recygénie benefited the local community?

Recygénie has concretely improved residents’ quality of life. Densifying this neighborhood enabled us to seal the soil, improve water management and increase biodiversity by creating very green courtyards.

My proudest moment was the project’s inauguration day. Throughout the event, many people told us how proud they were, and how much they enjoyed living in this new neighborhood.

The fact that we were able to create more sustainable housing units through our great partnership with Holcim and contribute to research while enhancing the experience and daily lives of our tenants is so special to us. Our shared success with Recygénie demonstrates the viability of transformative projects for both the environment and local communities.