Recycled Buildings

How to Design for Disassembly

Illustration Evgenia Barinova

Design for disassembly (DfD) offers flexibility, convertibility, addition, and subtraction of whole-buildings.” Bradley Guy

While LEED does not yet give points for design for disassembly in principle, many national green-building rating systems are now rewarding design for deconstruction, including the UK’s BREEAM and Germany’s DGNB. “While some states have adopted the International Green Construction Code as a voluntary addition to the International Building Code, so far the US is not legislating for DfD,” explains Guy. “However, within the LEED system, there is a ‘design for flexibility’ credit for the healthcare sector specifically. Within this credit, there are three recognizable strategies which look to the future of the building as it is being designed. The first is ‘interstitial space’, which means better chase-ways for utilities and services; then ‘softspace’, which is access to unprogrammed space within the building’s shell; and lastly the concept of ‘expansion’, making either future vertical or horizontal extension of core systems viable.”

Old bricks from the Carlsberg Brewery used in the Resource Rows by the Lendager Group © Rasmus Hjortshøj, COAST Studio

It made me think more about what happens to buildings over time — it’s clear that architects just aren’t thinking about the renovation and demolition of their buildings” Bradley Guy

While any type of demolition is a hazardous job, when the materials and construction techniques are not given enough consideration during the design process, or corners are cut on-site, the effects on neighboring communities can be vast, and in some cases, deadly. Reveal recently aired a podcast which touched on the dangers of lead paint in the demolition of old buildings. To save money, water was not sprayed during demolition to mitigate lead dust being released into the air, with far-reaching consequences. “There is no question about the effect of neurotoxins on children,” says Guy, “old buildings can contain lead, asbestos, mercury, wood preservation made from arsenic and cyanide — but worryingly, the chemistry of many of the composite materials architects are commissioning today are more complicated, and can contain harmful pollutants.” To add to this toxicity, for cost reasons components are often glued onsite with environmentally unstable adhesives and resins.

Model from Lendager Group’s exhibition ‘Wasteland: From Waste to Architecture’ exhibition in Kolding, Denmark © Lendager Group

The question we are asking is — what can inspire architecture to develop answers to climate change and wider geopolitical questions through local solutions?” Anders Lendager

“The question we are asking is — what can inspire architecture to develop answers to climate change and wider geopolitical questions through local solutions?”, asks Lendager. “Unfortunately in our society we have chosen to construct buildings where short turnaround and low upfront costs are the two most important factors. But the reality is that approach generates way higher costs later down the line, both financial and environmental. When buildings are deconstructed, their component materials may not be at the end of their lifespan, which generates massive wasted potential. It was not until we started to make material catalogues of existing sites that we realised the true value of the materials about to be scrapped,” Lendager continues, “so made it a key goal for our office to harvest this material potential, which we call the ‘tax’, or ‘data’, held in the beams. That is why we developed our consultancy wing, to lay the groundwork for the technical challenges, such as fire and building regulations, to find new ways to handle the demands and the legislation of how to take things apart”.

Reuse Station, a Local Recycling Centre in Nordhavn, Copenhagen © Lendager Group

We like to think that we harvest material potential, which we call the “tax”, or “data”, held in the beams.” Anders Lendager

This construction approach has been written about by Guy in his design for deconstruction checklist, and he has noted that certain projects and architectural movements have accommodated DfD, despite not generally recognized as doing so. For example, the Seagram building in New York by Mies van der Roche makes use of pure materials, such as metal, glass, stone and concrete in its detailing, which offers future opportunities for direct recycling and reuse. In his research, Guy underlines that the use of connections such as bolts as “key ingredients in Modernism” as a valuable “potential deconstruction tradition”.

Detail from the Seagram Building in New York by Mies van der Rohe. Detail via hesed.info

The highly speculative nature of most building, whereby there is not a long-term ownership, and therefore adaptation, renovation and demolition costs are not borne by the original owner.” Bradley Guy

Diagram of the Circle House © Lendager Group

Take detail design into your own hands if you wish to design for disassembly. It is important that whoever is taking the building apart needs to be able to access key structural connections” Bradley Guy

Rather than being about a specific construction technique, or architectural style, design for disassembly might be seen as a process of developing practices and assemblages to get the most use out of building materials while maximizing opportunity for repair, reuse and recycling further down the line. Guy suggests, “the next generation of buildings will have to express more intentionality of the continuous material cycle if they are to be sustainable in the long term.” He predicts that in the US, the school and healthcare building sectors are in a position to engage with and push for DfD as indoor air quality and longevity are at the forefront of their client’s, and public, concern.

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Architect and researcher based in Tanzania, East Africa. Follow for discussions on how global developments are shaping the built environment👇

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Hannah Wood

Architect and researcher based in Tanzania, East Africa. Follow for discussions on how global developments are shaping the built environment👇