on

40% of all waste nations generate comes from buildings.

We put much material and energy in the construction of buildings which will eventually be demolished. Construction materials we use in our buildings are not recoverable, or just too difficult to recover. Often the initial designers and builders didn't plan the future disassembly of the building. 

What if buildings were not designed as permanent objects but rather as temporary assemblies, or material banks? 

That could help reducing construction and demolition waste and simultaneously avoid the extraction of new resources. How to? Designing for future disassembly entails a challenge as it differs from the conventional practice. Architects and contractors could feel inexperienced and doubt the benefits of "Design for Disassembly". After all, to what extent a building can be disassembled depends on its design and could be evaluated from the first building plans. Aren't the materials too fragile? Are they assembled in a simple way? Are only reversible connections used?

To support the transition towards a more dynamic built environment, we will develop a tool to measure the possibility to disassemble a building and recover its materials.

The tool models the amount of materials recovered, the waste generated and the time needed to disassemble a building part. The calculation is based on the geometry of the building and information about its components. This information will be extracted from a digital information model of the building, as supported by 'BIM' (Building Information Models), which are become increasingly common in the construction sector. This information will be sorted by an algorithm based on network analysis and weighted paths.

More information about the underlying method for this tool is available in this publicly available paper.

François Denis, Niels De Temmerman, Waldo Galle

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/327132350_Using_Network_Analysis_and_BIM_to_Quantify_the_Impact_of_Design_for_Disassembly