A framework for sustainable tropical design: converging circular economy into passive design strategies

Purpose The escalation in demand for buildings in tropical zones has risen resulting from global population growth. Moreover, the construction industry is under growing pressure to adapt sustainable practices. Hence, this research aims to investigate how Circular Economy (CE) principles can be converged with Tropical Design Strategies (TDS) to enhance sustainability within the construction industry. Design/methodology/approach Qualitative approach was employed with three rounds of Delphi technique, following semi-structured expert interviews. Collected data were analysed through content analysis. Findings Four passive design strategies were explored as the most suitable strategies for building designs in the tropical regions. To amalgamate passive design strategies of Tropical Designs (TD) with the most practicable CE R principles, 23 number of methods were proposed to each passive design strategy. Furthermore, 11 enablers were revealed in converging TD with CE. Among them, green building design, advanced design software and bioclimatic designs are the enablers which are applicable for all the design strategies. Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this research is the first kind of research which was done converging three concepts of CE, TD and sustainability. Moreover, this research defined various approaches on how to integrate CE R principles with each identified passive design strategy as an influential approach for ameliorating sustainability. This research contributes to the practice by proposing methods to building designers and architects on how to design buildings in tropical regions following CE principles while ensuring sustainability.