Nikken Sekkei Co., Ltd. announced on October 28, 2026 the launch of the “CDC Collaborative Council,” a forum for discussing circular design in the architecture and civil engineering sectors across industry lines and translating those discussions into practice. The council opens up the “Circular Design Collective (CDC),” an initiative conceived and led by Nikken Sekkei, to a wider range of participants. Loftwork Inc. will serve as the operating secretariat.
The Collaborative Council will hold monthly regular meetings based in Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto and other locations. Participants will present examples of circular design initiatives and discuss them from the perspectives of businesses, architects, designers, and contractors, among others. The content of these discussions will be accumulated in two tools. The first is the “Circular Idea Catalog (CIC),” a knowledge base compiling design ideas and advanced case studies for circular architecture, access to which is limited to Collaborative Partners and Collaborative Corporate Partners. The second is the “Circular Issue Map (CIM),” which visualizes, along with their causal relationships, the factors that hinder resource circulation in architecture and cities; discussed case studies will be entered into the map, linked to issues and solutions. The council will also hold an annual study-tour retreat, deepening discussions by observing initiatives on site.
In terms of role division, Nikken Sekkei, as founder, sets out the philosophy and vision, while Loftwork handles overall planning, editing of discussions, information dissemination, and operational management. Loftwork, which comes from outside the construction industry, was brought on board so that discussions would not remain confined to the perspective of architects alone, making it easier for people in various positions within the construction industry to take part.
The initiative is set against the backdrop of the construction industry’s significant environmental burden. According to Nikken Sekkei, construction accounts for approximately 57% of Japan’s total domestic resource consumption, and construction waste makes up about 20% of all industrial waste in the country (based on the Ministry of the Environment’s “FY2021 Annual Report on the Environment, the Sound Material-Cycle Society and the Biodiversity in Japan” and the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism’s “Outlook for Demand for Major Construction Materials, FY2019” and “FY2018 Survey on the Actual Conditions of Construction By-products”). To address resource depletion, the shortage of final disposal sites for construction waste, and the need to cut greenhouse gas emissions, there is an urgent need to build architectural systems that take demolition and material recovery into account from the outset.
Nikken Sekkei launched the CDC in 2024 with the goal of eliminating the concept of “waste” from the architecture and civil engineering industries, and has been operating the CIC internally. In 2025, together with volunteers from seven companies in fields such as general contracting and spatial/interior design, as well as Loftwork, the company launched the “CIC Collaborative Partnership,” through which it repeatedly developed evaluation criteria usable at design sites and verified prototypes. That same year, it also created the CIM together with volunteers from central government ministries and agencies. Building on the knowledge accumulated so far, the newly launched Collaborative Council is positioned to expand these efforts into a cross-industry network.
Nikken Sekkei intends to treat the knowledge and processes gained through the Collaborative Council as open, shared knowledge, and to spread it not only among participating companies and organizations but across the industry as a whole.
*Images in this article are quoted from the press release.
【Press release】Nikken Sekkei accelerates efforts toward the social implementation of circular design in the construction industry — Launching the “CDC Collaborative Council” as a new driving body for the “Circular Design Collective”
【Related article】Nikken Sekkei Begins Developing “Circular Idea Catalog,” a Compilation of Circular Economy Knowledge for the Construction Industry
