The building sector is responsible for a significant share of global greenhouse gas emissions, raw material usage, and waste generation, driving the need for new circular design strategies. Among these, Design for Disassembly (DfD) promotes the reuse, repair, and recycling of building components. However, existing quantitative DfD assessment methodologies generally require extensive preliminary studies, which limit their practical use. This article presents a new quantitative DfD assessment methodology developed within the EU-funded INFINITE project, which aims to provide designers with a simple yet robust tool to evaluate the detachability potential of building integrated systems without requiring prior environmental studies. This methodology has been designed to evaluate specific DfD scores for maintenance, reuse, and recycling, using the mass and lifespan of products or systems as weighting factors. The tool was tested and validated on several systems developed during the INFINITE project. In the specific case of the Building Integrated Solar Thermal (BIST) system, it successfully identified key design improvements—such as enhanced accessibility for maintenance operations and optimized component connections. Industrial partners reported high usability and recognized the tool as a valuable decision-support instrument during early development phases. Nevertheless, the assessment methodology also revealed some limitations related to the assessment of the specific components and end-of-life scenarios, and to the absence of a holistic evaluation of trade-offs between mass-based score and environmental impacts.

This study evaluates the impact of digitalization on Life Cycle Costs (LCC) associated with the prefabrication and installation phases of prefabricated façade modules for building retrofit applications. A comparative analysis was conducted between a semi-automated prefabrication workflow, characterized by significant manual operations, and a fully automated workflow implementing advanced automation throughout the evaluated phases, from design and manufacturing to on-site installation. The research focused on a standard opaque façade module with dimensions of 9.6 × 3.4 m as a case study. An LCC assessment methodology was developed to systematically identify and evaluate relevant cost parameters from pre-design measurement to installation of the module. Quantitative data regarding digitalization impacts were collected through structured interviews with prefabricated module manufacturers and suppliers of automated construction machinery, supplemented by literature review, market-based datasets, and technical documentation. The research methodology encompassed three main phases: structuring the analytical framework and selecting comparison parameters, estimating LCC parameters through industry consultation and literature analysis, and performing comparative calculations. Results indicate that comprehensive digitalization of the prefabrication process yields significant economic benefits, resulting in approximately 21% lower total cost for the stages under evaluation and about 53% reduction in execution time per module. The findings indicate the potential economic advantages of digitalized prefabrication technologies for façade retrofit applications under the investigated assumptions and industrial-scale production conditions, while supporting the broader adoption of automated manufacturing processes in the construction industry and contributing to more sustainable building renovation practices.