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This paper is part of the design strategies of reassembly and reuse of buildings according to the transition to circular economy. Specifically, the paper addresses the issue of architectural envelopes made of drywall and their executive design according to a Life Cycle Thinking (LCT) approach, based on a case study of a temporary wooden housing unit for which there are several scenarios of use and end of life once the first cycle of use of the components of the envelope has come to an end. In particular, the paper, based on the collection of environmental profiles of products through Environmental Product Declarations (EPD), wants to define a balance between the environmental impacts incorporated in the used materials and the benefits related to the adoption of dry construction techniques.

The paper presents the results of a research funded by the Veneto Region concerning the study of innovative temporary wooden housing units for the hospitalisation and accommodation of elderly people in the case of functional requalification of buildings used as care homes. The project originates from the observation that existing buildings used as care homes may often need to be redeveloped. In this scenario, a temporary housing unit with advanced comfort and energy saving features may, therefore, constitute an optimal solution for the protection of elderly people and, at the same time, to experiment with new models of living, besides possibly adapting them for permanent accommodation.