Residues of the construction as new sustainable educational content in the European space of higher education

Abstract

A current tendency in construction is to have a cycle of life the most possible closed; acting in an optimal form with economy, and in a reasonable form with the environment. Using in starting point, a first generation material which, after a transformation process, generates an input that once it exhausted its useful life, outcomes the creation of a waste material. If this waste material, after another transformation process, produces a different material (second generation material), and it is insertedagain inside another input, the cycle of life of materials will be more efficient and harmonious with the environment. New trend in the study of the optimal cycle of life of materials, new specifications and environmental requests and the current economic impositions in the construction sector; cause the need to reuse, to design for beyond the common useful life and to apply new second generation materials inside the construction segment. This work presents the content of the subject Management and Taking Advantage of Residues in Construction, given in the Construction Master of the Upper Technical School of Building of the University Technical of Catalonia. The subject is designed to satisfy the necessity to acquire the construction new professional profile, which has to assume competences such as: ecological-social commitment, environmental interest, intuition to research, sustainable inventiveness, etc.