Breaking it down

EPA challenges designers to consider deconstruction

By Janine Anderson

The Chartwell School near Monterey, Calif., is designed for deconstruction. Photo courtesy of EHDD Architecture, San Francisco

What goes up eventually comes down.

When city blocks are redeveloped, the old buildings are torn down and hauled away. Turning a factory into condos? Remodeling a home? The same thing happens.

An incredible amount of waste is generated through redevelopment and remodeling. And while reuse and recycling of building materials gained popularity in the past 15 years with the green-building movement, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency wanted to see what could be done if the tear-down was part of the design process.

The fact-finding mission started with a request for proposals for Chartwell School near Monterey, Calif. The EPA in San Francisco funded a grant for the best design to build the school with an eye toward tearing it down.

The design that was selected prepared for the school's deconstruction and future renovation with techniques such as housing wiring in a utility raceway in the corridors to ease access and reduce the number of holes in studs, boosting their reuse potential; adding cold-joint, tongue-in-groove pavers; using nail-free wood paneling; and reusing wood salvaged from wine barrels and an old army barracks.

The Chartwell School design planted the seeds for the EPA's Lifecycle Building Challenge, which is now open to entrants, said Timonie Hood, a green-building coordinator with the EPA. The goal of the challenge is to spur designers' creativity in developing cost-effective disassembly and anticipating the future use of building materials.

Hood said the potential for deconstruction is the same whether a building is residential or commercial.

"The model we took the example from is a school, but most of these concepts would cross-apply," Hood said. "No matter what you're doing, there's something that could be gained by designing for disassembly."

The challenge, which is open to professionals and students, covers three main categories: building, which includes an entire structure from foundation to roof; component, which involves a single building assembly, system or connector; and service, which focuses on a tool, method or other idea.

"We wanted to take the work that had already been done to push the green-building movement," Hood said.

The EPA plans to honor and publicize the outstanding entries in each of the challenge's categories, and top student designs will receive cash awards. Built and unbuilt work qualifies.

There is no fee to enter the Web-based competition, and entrants are asked to register by April 15 and to submit their designs by May 15. Details and registration information are available at www.lifecyclebuilding.org.

The concept of deconstruction at the heart of the challenge isn't new, but looking at it from a design standpoint is.

"I think deconstruction and reuse goes back as far as time does, really," Hood said. "Certainly in ancient societies, people were reusing and adapting materials."

But in the modern building era, it's often easier to demolish something rather than painstakingly take it apart to reuse its components.

"The challenges are often time constraints or perceived time constraints - that it might take longer to deconstruct rather than tear it down and haul it away," Hood said. "But if it's a nail-free panel, just pop it off rather than de-nail it."

Ultimately, designing for deconstruction means people have to reconsider how to put a building up and take it down. Hood said the EPA is hoping the Lifecycle Building Challenge and the work done at Chartwell can start that change on a broad scale.

"This is a concept of transforming the way people think about building and using resources," she said. "We have to see existing buildings as stocks of resources to build new buildings rather than something you would just demolish and then bring in new materials. The potential impact is huge."