[Greenbuilding] 100 mile builds

[RT]

> Something that is definitely not focused on enough is the art of
> building for future unbuilding.

The more common term for "unbuilding" is "deconstruction" and any LCA will  
include it as part of the analysis during the design stage.

About 15 years (or more ?) ago, CMHC did a study to answer the questions  
that you are asking today and provided guidelines for design and  
construction techniques to facilitate ease of deconstruction and re-use of  
materials.

But even before CMHC did its study, deconstruction and re-use of materials  
had been practised for centuries, if not millennia in the Old World. (ie  
back to the days of ancient Rome at the very least)

It's only over here in the Effluent (sic) West where the notion of  
disposable buildings with a design service life of a single generation or  
less is commonplace.


I think that the residential building sector might do well to have a look  
at the methods and materials used in the commercial building sector.

All of the materials on an entire 20,000 sf floor of an office tower can  
be deconstructed by a crew of less than a dozen workers in well under a  
day and most, if not all of the materials can be re-used .




-- 
=== * ===
Rob Tom
Kanata, Ontario, Canada

< A r c h i L o g i c  at  Y a h o o  dot  c a  >
(manually winnow the chaff from my edress if you hit "reply")