Brad Guy and Nicholas Ciarimboli, DfD: Design for Disassembly in the Built Environment: A Guide to Closed-Loop Design and Building, prepared on behalf of the City of Seattle, King County, Washington, and Resource Venture, Inc. by the Hamer Center for Community Design, The Pennsylvania State University.
Today’s deconstruction bears no relation to either the Deconstructivist Architecture exhibit launched by The Museum of Modem Art in 1988 or the short-lived architecture movement that followed in its wake. (Although Philip Johnson himself declared it neither a style nor a movement, it turned out to be both.)
Far from a stylistic pursuit. deconstruction today is about planning the fullest lives for buildings and giving proper consideration to their ultimate demise. The term “disassembly,” used interchangeably with “deconstruction.” also refers to products. In the context of buildings, it is an emerging field that has received scant attention until now. DfD: Design for Disassembly in the Built Environment: A Guide to Closed-Loop Design and Building, a recently published guide written by Brad Guy and Nicholas Ciarimboli, asks us to see buildings as a strategy with a dynamic life. This broad view begins with the way architects design. Ripe with potential and quickly gaining acceptance, this thinking is long overdue.
The construction industry consumes 60 percent of all materials moving within the U.S. economy. It is predicted that 27 percent of all buildings that existed in the year 2,000 will be replaced before 2,030. By 2030, over 50 percent of buildings will have been built after the year 2000. It’s our choice to either devise a plan for how to dispose of all the waste, or consider seriously the principles of DfD for extending buildings’ lives and planning an environmentally sensitive way to repair, renovate, and eliminate.
Consider the products deployed into the marketplace today and how they differ from those of just 20 to 30 years ago. Today we purchase cheaply constructed, non-recyclable products that have a short useful life. When they break, we dispose of them and purchase replacements.
We don’t think about the embodied energy in replacements when we cash in on those warranties, nor do we think about the landfill our discarded models will eventually call home. Now consider buying quality machines and appliances, such as blenders, designed for longer lives with interchangeable, recyclable components. Preventative maintenance and periodic repairs become the bread and butter of a local repair shop industry. In the process, we utilize far fewer natural resources and, for a fraction of the cost, get many more years out of our trusty blender. This is how it used to be—but we’ve gotten far away from it. We often find tomorrow’s answers by looking to the past. Now let’s apply this same thinking to buildings.
As the world moves away from the twentieth century’s industrial extract-consume-dispose approach to natural resources, DfD supports knowledge-based design and challenges architects to use their creativity to close the design loop. Why? Because our planet can’t continue to provide the resources for buildings as we know them today. Tomorrow’s buildings—like yesterday’s appliances—should be built to last and designed for adaptability. They should be easier to repair, and functioning components should be easily disassembled and earmarked for other uses at the end of a building’s life.
The obstacles to DfD are: the speculative nature of buildings; negative perceptions and beliefs in systems designed for deconstruction; composites and petroleum-based products; coatings and layers of finish; connection methods that are difficult to undo; loss of craft skills to create aesthetically pleasing connections and fasteners; and the labor costs to deconstruct and sort. Many municipalities nationwide are proving that sorting is quickly becoming commonplace. Altering the rest is up to architects and the construction industry.
Guy and Ciarimboli cite examples from a simpler time, when people relied on disassembly for their very existence, exemplified by the North American teepee and the craft-oriented joinery of traditional Japanese architecture. They also show success stories of today’s planning for future adaptability. The Wal-Mart in Lawrence, Kansas, was designed by William McDonough + Partners to outlive its current program and convert to housing by supporting a future second level. In San Francisco, the current home for the California College of the Arts, designed by Tanner Leddy Maytum Stacy, is the successful transformation of a former Greyhound maintenance facility that SOM designed in 1951.
The DfD guide was intended for owners, architects, and builders. Although impeccably researched, this trailblazing document reads more like a call to action. The strategies come off far more complicated than they are, as one labors through its long text, endless lists, and numerous bullet points. Its format could be improved with better diagrams and larger photos that more clearly illustrate the concepts. Packaging aside, there’s a lot to draw from.
Simplicity is clearly a key concept of DfD. Simple frame buildings are suggested with exposed fasteners and, in some cases, directions for disassembly are clearly noted at the connection point. Disassembly documents are also suggested as a future method for deconstructing buildings. This seems like overkill, because these documents would describe means and methods. Any contractor who understands record construction drawings can figure out how to take a building apart. Disassembly allows us to retool the demolition process as we know it today. Easy: no manuals, additional drawings, or dynamite required-and no liability for architects.
Still, I can’t help but wonder if these ideas will ever translate to larger, more complicated building programs and wet assemblies (components constructed for a specific project at a specific site and less readily separated out at the end of life-concrete shear walls for example), and if so, how? The guide doesn’t get us there, so that’s where our ingenuity takes over. Let’s focus our energy on changing those systems we take for granted, systems we know will have to be replaced long before the end of a building’s life, such as window and finish attachment details-inside and out. While we’re at it, we could look into designing large concrete floor decks for disassembly and future resale. Doing so would eliminate the energy required to reconstitute the components and would save the energy required to pour new decks all over again.
The reliance on landfill still lurks beneath the pages of the guide, when we consider that a material’s potential decreases with each cycle. A tremendous amount of energy is required to recycle and reconstitute products for their next market. I feel the emphasis should be first on adaptability, with disassembly only as a last resort. Designing exclusively for longevity and reuse is a much more challenging prospect. If successful, we ultimately eliminate resource depletion and arrive at what the 2006 Factor 10 manifesto calls dematerialization. Architects now have an opportunity, through design, to help chart the future course of how buildings are built and envision a future industry brokering reused building components on a massive and unprecedented scale.
Make no mistake-our need to change is our biggest threat. This change will recognize a new design process in which architects ponder distant program scenarios far into the future. By laying down the rhythm track, they will provide the early foundation for the number and, thereby, set the stage for a future jam session. This could be a deal breaker for strong egos.
DfD is the future. Many bugs need to be worked out before it gains more widespread acceptance. The authors force us to look hard at the status quo, challenging us to alter our perceptions and change the way buildings go together. Thanks to Guy and Ciarimboli for getting us thinking.
Reviewer Marc L’Italien, AlA, is a design principal with EHDD Architecture in San Francisco. He is a designer of high performance human, animal, and exhibit environments. He has partnered with clients to create structures at universities, zoos, and aquaria throughout the U.S. that express their vision while being perfectly suited to place and climate.
Originally published 4th quarter 2007 in arcCA 07.4, “preFABiana.”
