The Ettelbrück station area is undergoing a real urban change. The building from 1873 has therefore to be demolished. The CFL appointed Schroeder & Associés for the demolition. A strong interest in reclaiming elements of this historic building was shown and the step towards deconstruction was quickly made. For example, all the facade stones were removed and stored to rebuild the building in another area in the future.
Removal of the awning posts – Train Station Ettelbrück (Crédit : Schroeder & Associés)
Deconstruction of the Ettelbrück train station (Crédit : Schroeder & Associés)
The Ettelbrück station area is undergoing a real urban change. The capacity of the train station needs to be upscaled and a new passenger building was therefore planned. A road tunnel is also planned on the same spot and the building has therefore to be demolished. The owner CFL appointed Schroeder & Associés for the technical studies for the demolition.
Ettelbrück is located in the North of Luxembourg. The building of the train station was built in 1873 and it is composed of a basement, a ground floor and a first floor with a global volume of 4 500m3.
When the demolition was published, a strong interest in reclaiming elements of this historic building was shown and it became a deconstruction. At the beginning, only few elements were supposed to be reused and progressively the INPA (Institut National pour le Patrimoine Architectural) and the owner of a mill have come forward to recover other elements. The building is not classified as an historical building, but it has a historical story for Ettelbrück and this was confirmed with requests to recover the elements
Schroeder & Associés has planned the deconstruction and has included the reuse strategy in the tender documents. In Luxembourg waste management is regulated with the law of 9 june 2022 (« loi du 9 juin 2022 modifiant la loi du 21 mars 2012 relative à la gestion des déchets », https://legilux.public.lu/eli/etat/leg/loi/2012/03/21/n1/jo), that prescribes that a pre-demolition inventar has to be established for demolition-projects. This inventar has also to identify if the deconstructed materials can be reused, recycled or valorised. Hence trying to promote the reuse, this law is mainly focused on waste management. Therefore, with the Digital DeConstruction (DDC) project, we go further and try to reuse more materials and equipment. Schroeder & Associés prepared the first inventory (based on the law’s prescription) and a second one, more detailed, in one part of the building to compare a manual inventory with the results from the DDC. The deconstruction was made under the supervision of Schroeder & associés.
At the end of the project, we have 14% of the volume of elements reused into the building. The different elements that have been recovered are the following:
On the Ettelbrück station project, the DDC methodology had started with the 3D scan, but the rest was not done before the start of the demolition. The reuse strategy on this project was realised manually and based on our experience in the field of construction. This method took a lot of time and was carried out more specifically on one flat of the passenger building
3D Scan, train station Ettelbrück Crédit: BIM-Y
Based on the 3D Scan the R-BIM Model was established during the deconstruction work. We therefore had the opportunity to compare the outputs of the R-BIM model with our manual inventory.
Reversible BIM, train station Ettelbrück Crédit: GTBLab
In the case of the station of Ettelbrück the fact that the building was mostly composed of handcrafted elements and not a standardised building a digital model is difficult to implement. The historical value of the elements has a strong impact on the decision to reclaim the element or not but this value cannot be machine-assessed.
Difference between Reversible BIM and reality, train station Ettelbrück, Crédit : GTBLab and Schroeder & Associés
In the case of the station of Ettelbrück the fact that the building was mostly composed of handcrafted elements and not a standardised building a digital model is difficult to implement. The historical value of the elements has a strong impact on the decision to reclaim the element or not but this value cannot be machine-assessed.
For Luxemburger Wort, a newspaper in Luxembourg, Guillaume Dubois gave an interview on the pilot Ettelbrück. The station will be demolished and materials from this ancient building reused instead of placing in building depots. This article (in German) gives an insight on the recycling economy of building materials.
CBA Ettelbruck- TIH – 11 mai 2023