Design for disassembly – themes and principles

Introduction

Current practice in the disassembly of existing buildings shows that there are numerous technical barriers to the successful recovery and reuse of components and materials. These barriers stem mainly from current construction practice that sees the assembly of materials and components as unidirectional with an end goal of producing a final building. Such a linear view of the built environment severely limits the end-of-life options when a building has reached the end of its service life. A more cyclic view of the built environment, and the materials within it, recognises the need to consider, at the design stage of a project, the disassembly process as well as the construction process.

While current industrialised building practice in Australia pays little attention to the issues of reuse and recycling, there are both contemporary and historic examples of buildings that have been designed for disassembly or successfully disassembled for reuse.

Contemporary buildings include the Macquarie University Incubator at Macquarie Park, NSW (Figures 1 and 2), Curtin University Sustainability Policy (CUSP) Institute Legacy Living Lab (L3) in Fremantle, WA (Figure 5) and the Northshore Pavilion at Hamilton, Queensland (Cover image). Historical examples include the portable colonial cottages of nineteenth century Australia, and London’s Crystal Palace of 1851, which were successfully assembled, disassembled, relocated and then reassembled.

A review of architectural history, and of related industries, such as industrial design, shows that there are two types of knowledge that are relevant in order to design for disassembly:

1. the broad themes that address the issues of why, what, where and when to disassemble
2. the specific design principles of how to design for disassembly.

There are three broad themes that significantly impact the decision making process of designing a building for future disassembly:

• a holistic model of environmentally sustainable construction
• the reading of a building as a series of layers with different service lives
• a reuse hierarchy that recognises the different benefits of different end-of-life scenarios.

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Adopting a model for sustainable construction practice

Before attempts are made to design for disassembly, the consequences must be understood within the wider picture of the built environment, and indeed within the global environment. While designing for future reuse has obvious environmental benefits such as possibly reducing material waste, and reducing energy consumption, there are also potential environmental costs such as greater initial energy consumption, and the possible use of more toxic materials due to their improved durability. While these environmental costs are almost certainly of a smaller impact, they must be recognised and considered. To manage this process, a model is required that allows the place and role of designing for disassembly to be seen within the overall picture of environmentally sustainable construction.

Life cycle assessment

The notion of life cycle assessment (LCA) is a well-recognised way of understanding, assessing and planning a reduction in the environmental consequences of our actions. An LCA of a system or product identifies all of the inputs and outputs, both beneficial and not so, during the entire life cycle of that system or product. It is usual to visualise this analysis as a two-dimensional graph or matrix that plots environmental resources against the stages of the life of the system or product. In this way all of the cumulative environmental impacts can be seen and analysed. This model, with its two axes of environmental resources and life cycle stages, however, does not offer strategies for dealing with the unwanted impacts, such as resource consumption, pollution, loss of biodiversity, and reduced human health and safety.

A model of sustainable construction

To propose solutions to these problems, a third axis of ‘principles’ for environmental responsibility can be added. In this way, a three-dimensional matrix can be created. Charles Kibert (2022) of the University of Florida proposes such a model. This model, with the three axes of environmental resources, life cycle stages and principles of sustainability, can be used to illustrate the large number of issues that pertain to a sustainable construction industry, and the interrelationships between them. The model can also be used as a tool to manage the decision making process during a construction project. At any point of intersection along the three axes there will be a range of decisions to be made, each with further impacts along those axes that must be considered.

It can be seen in this model that there is a time at the design stage of a building for the strategy of the future reuse of materials to be considered. This is to say that this model identifies a place for designing for disassembly. This model highlights the fact that such an activity should exist within the general field of sustainable construction, and also shows the potential relationships with other environmental issues and strategies. The model assists the designer in an understanding of why and when to design for disassembly. It can therefore be used as a design tool to make the designer aware of possible conflicts that may occur between alternative principles of design for disassembly. A designer keen to recycle materials to reduce the amount of waste may find that the amount of energy required for recycling may be higher, due to increased transportation, than the energy required for creating new materials. There can also be conflict in the choice of material – a long life, durable material that has a greater toxic content as opposed to a less durable material with less toxic content.

Cradle to cradle design

In 2001, German chemist Michael Braungart and US architect William McDonough proposed a production system in which everything is designed to be reused, effectively eliminating the concept of waste. Their book Cradle-to-Cradle (C2C) (2002) proposed for all products to have easily disassembled components, thus producing new products or systems emulating nature.

An important feature of the C2C principle is the image of a circle. The infinite circle symbolises that the products and their resources can always be reused.

The C2C principle distinguishes between the biological and the technical cycle:

• A biological life cycle may be a series of changes in form that an organism undergoes, returning to the starting state. Organic products, post consumption, can be composted or anaerobically digested, transforming them into consumable goods able to contribute to future processes or systems.
• In the technical life cycle, products are reused, repaired, remanufactured and recycled. Ideally, resources circulate endlessly in cycles, eliminating waste.

A central element of the C2C approach is the distinction between efficiency and effectiveness. Efficiency is about doing something right. Effectiveness, however, is about the question of what is right anyway. In designing for disassembly, the elimination of all waste is an ideal outcome.

Circular economy

A circular economy favours activities that preserve value in the form of energy, labour and materials. This means designing for durability, reuse, remanufacturing and recycling to keep products, components and materials circulating in the economy.

The circular economy has the objective of reusing the waste of a system as a resource elsewhere.

The issue with circular economy is that it belongs to a linear paradigm (versus a circular one) which intends to close the linear process with different specialised actors in charge of recycling. C2C and circular economy can be in opposition, since in C2C the waste has a very high value that is envisaged to stay in the boundaries of the system, ideally not being used beyond that particular system.

Supply chains may undergo transformation in a circular economy and product designers may be essentially integrated into the life cycle process. The integration of recyclers as service providers may exist at every step of the service life cycle (production, distribution, re-acquisition of matter, recycling) allowing the upselling of premium services and increased value. Service providers and/or partners may specialise in the different and varied activities of production, distribution and recycling, always ensuring that value-added material returns to producers to close the loop. The end result is that a producer remains autonomous material wise and ideally society’s waste will cease to exist. Landfills could be closed or mined for future material reclamation. A circular economy will always minimise waste while an upcycle C2C approach will strive to cease waste.

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Time-related building layers

When we discuss a building, we tend to think of it as just that, a single building. Buildings are conceived, designed, constructed, used and disposed of as complete entities. This notion of the singular building is however flawed, in part, resulting from our reading of the building over a limited time frame. Most buildings live long lives in some form or another and usually change during that time due to retrofitting. This results in a series of different buildings over time that may, or may not, share certain physical parts. Typically the structure of a building may be retained while the internal spaces are changed with components removed and replaced, or services upgraded.

Analysis of vernacular architecture, especially by the noted Dutch writer John Habraken (2000), typically identifies two layers of building. Firstly, the structural frame which has a long service life, and secondly, the space-making elements of partitioning walls that may be removed and reused or replaced over time as spatial needs change. In these buildings technological steps are taken to allow for such changes over time through the design for disassembly of those components which have a shorter service life expectancy.

Recognition of the different service lives of different parts of a building was a popular topic with architects in the 1960’s when groups such as Archigram in Britain and the Metabolists in Japan were experimenting with building systems where such disassembly was not only possible but highlighted in the aesthetic character of the projects. Interestingly these architects often proposed specific service lives for different parts of buildings, depending on their life expectancy.

For a similar, but much expanded analysis of the different service lives of the layers of buildings, ‘How Buildings Learn – What Happens After They’re Built’ (Brand, 1994) is still a noteworthy text. Brand dissects the layers of a building into: structure, skin, services, space plan, and stuff, and also adds the layer of the site on which the building stands (Table 1). Brand (1994) goes to great lengths to explain the technical and social benefits of designing and constructing buildings in a layered manner. He states ‘Buildings adapt by being constantly refined and reshaped by their occupants, and in that way, architects can become artists in time rather than artists of shape’. Adopting design for disassembly allows architects to value add for a client, over a greater timespan. Like Habraken (2000) Brand recognises the lessons already learned by vernacular builders and further suggests specific lessons for building designers based on the historic study of buildings and their adaptation, addition and relocation over time.

Table 1. Building layers and their life spans (Brand 1994)

The Environment note Design for adaptability (Graham 2005), explains the significance of building layers in designing for future building adaptability. There is also significant relevance in these time related building layers to the concerns of designing for disassembly. It is at the junctions of layers that disassembly will need to occur. These junctions need to be designed to facilitate appropriate disassembly at the places where it will be required – that is between components of different service life expectance. Facilitating such disassembly will allow buildings to develop over time in an environmentally and socially responsible way.

An understanding of time related building layers will assist the designer in understanding where and when to design for disassembly.

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Hierarchies of reuse

Linear life cycle

The usual mode of operation in our industrialised society is one of single use and disposal. Materials are extracted from the natural environment, processed, manufactured, used once, and then disposed of, usually back into the natural environment resulting in pollution, resource depletion, habitat loss and excessive energy consumption. This so-called ‘life cycle’ is, in fact, linear not cyclic, starting with material extraction and ending in the disposal of unwanted waste. Such a model for how materials pass through the built environment identifies a number of life cycle stages; extraction, processing, manufacture, assembly, use, demolition and disposal.

Life cycle options

This model is not the only option, and it is not difficult to reconfigure these stages into a true cycle of material life in which unwanted building materials and components, or indeed whole buildings, can be recycled or reused. With the appropriate disassembly strategy, such recycling can occur in many different ways.

There are a range of possible reuse scenarios with a range of outcomes. If the technical outcomes of the deconstruction process are considered, four differently scaled outcomes are possible. These are:

• the reuse of a whole building
• the production of a repurposed building
• the production of new building components
• the production of new building materials.

These would relate to four possible end-of-life scenarios:

• building reuse or relocation
• component reuse or relocation in a repurposed building
• material reuse in the manufacture of new building components
• materials recycling into new building materials.

If the strategy of designing for disassembly is applied to the built environment, the life cycle stage of demolition could be replaced with a stage of disassembly. The typical once-through life cycle of materials in the built environment could then be altered to accommodate possible end-of-life scenarios and produce a range of alternative life cycles. Figure 4 shows the current dominant scenario in which demolition results in large quantities of waste creation. It also shows the possible alternative end-of-life scenarios in which waste can be significantly reduced, if not eliminated entirely.

Perhaps the most significant aspect of these scenarios is that some of them are more environmentally desirable than others.

The reuse of a building component has the added advantage of requiring less energy or new resource input than the recycling of base materials. In a society where all energy has some environmental cost, and is primarily produced through the burning of fossil fuels, any strategy that reduces energy and resource use has environmental advantages.

Buildings might, for example, be better designed for the reuse of components rather than simply the recycling of materials. In reality, it will be advantageous for buildings to be designed for all of these levels of ‘recycling’ since the future reuse possibilities of a building cannot be accurately predicted decades before eventual disassembly.

An understanding of the hierarchy of reuse offers guidance on what to disassemble for any given end-of-life scenario. It must be noted that it may not always be preferable to design for disassembly at building or component level. It is quite possible that for a particular project there are other environmental concerns such as autonomous energy generation, or the avoidance of all toxic content, that may outweigh the benefits of a design for disassembly strategy. This is why the holistic picture of a sustainable construction industry is needed to guide this decision making process.

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Principles of design for disassembly

These three broad themes of a model for environmentally sustainable construction, time related building layers, and a reuse hierarchy, are important in assisting to manage the process of design for disassembly. They do not, however, answer the question of how to design for disassembly. For that, a number of design principles, or guidelines, are required.

There are a number of important historic examples of buildings that have been disassembled, either by design or otherwise, that can offer significant information about the technical aspects of such disassembly, these include: traditional and vernacular timber buildings, temporary buildings for military use such as the Nissen hut, the Dymaxion projects of Buckminster Fuller, the Fun Palace of Cedric Price, the Centre George Pompidou, Lloyds of London, and several of the projects of Grimshaw Architects and William McDonough Architects.

Review of these buildings and many others, some realised projects and some conceptual investigations, reveals a pattern of common solutions or approaches to the difficulties of designing for disassembly. These common approaches offer recurring principles as design guidance for architects and building designers.

Design for disassembly principles

1. Use recycled and recyclable materials – to allow for all levels of the recycling hierarchy, increased use of recycled materials will also encourage industry and government to develop new technologies for recycling, and to create larger support networks and markets for future recycling.
2. Minimise the number of different types of materials – this will simplify the process of sorting during disassembly, and reduce transport to different recycling locations, and result in greater quantities of each material.
3. Avoid toxic and hazardous materials – this will reduce the potential for contaminating materials that are being sorted for recycling, and will reduce the potential for health risks that might otherwise discourage disassembly.
4. Avoid composite materials and make inseparable subassemblies from the same material – in this way large amounts of one material will not be contaminated by a small amount of a foreign material that cannot be easily separated.
5. Avoid secondary finishes – such coatings may contaminate the base material and make recycling difficult. Where possible use materials that provide their own suitable finish or use mechanically separable finishes (Note: some protective finishes such as galvanising may still on balance be desirable since they extend the service life of the component despite disassembly or recycling problems).
6. Provide standard and permanent identification of material types – many materials such as plastics are not easily identifiable and should be provided with a non-removable and non-contaminating identification mark to allow for future sorting, such a mark could provide information on material type, place and time or origin, structural capacity, toxic content, etc.
7. Minimise the number of different types of components – this will simplify the process of sorting and reduce the number of different disassembly procedures to be undertaken, it will also make component reuse more attractive due to greater numbers of fewer components.
8. Use mechanical connections rather than chemical ones – this will allow the easy separation of components and materials without force, reduce contamination of materials, and reduce damage to components.
9. Use an open building system where parts of the building are more freely interchangeable and less unique to one application – this will allow alterations in the building layout through relocation of components without significant modification.
10. Use modular design – use components and materials that are compatible with other systems both dimensionally and functionally. This type of modular co-ordination, not only has assembly advantages, but clearly also has disassembly advantages, such as standardisation of disassembly procedure and a broader market for reused components.
11. Use construction technologies that are compatible with standard, simple, and ‘low- tech’ building practice and common tools – specialist technologies will make disassembly difficult to perform and a less attractive option, particularly for the user. Specialist technologies, materials, and systems that have limited application today may not be readily available in the future when a building is to be disassembled.
12. Separate the structure from the cladding, internal walls and services – to allow for parallel disassembly such that some parts or systems of the building may be removed without affecting other parts. Most construction methods can be considered as being either a system of load-bearing walls, or a system of separate structural frame and infill. The system of separate frame and infill is by far the more compatible of the two, with a range of disassembly requirements.
13. Provide access to all parts of the building and to all components – ease of access will allow ease of disassembly, allow access for disassembly from within the building if possible.
14. Size components and materials to suit the intended means of handling – allow for various handling operations during assembly, disassembly, transport, reprocessing and reassembly. The handling of building materials and components is an important consideration in any building, more so if the building is to be disassembled and components later reassembled.
15. Provide a means of handling and locating components during the assembly and disassembly procedure – handling may require points of attachment for lifting equipment as well as temporary supporting and locating devices. The provision of a means of handling components is not often considered in building design because the current approach within the building industry is that a component will only be handled once during the initial assembly.
16. Provide realistic tolerances to allow for manoeuvring during disassembly – the repeated assembly and disassembly process may require greater tolerance than for the manufacture process or for a one-off assembly process.
17. Use a minimum number of fasteners or connectors – to allow for easy and quick disassembly and so that the disassembly procedure is not complex or difficult to understand. Such a principle will assist in the repair of the component or in the rebuilding of it, though it is not so relevant for the reclaiming (for recycling) of the material, which might be recovered by simply breaking the component.
18. Use a minimum number of different types of fasteners or connectors – to allow for a more standardised process of assembly and disassembly without the need for numerous different tools and operations.
19. Design joints and connectors to withstand repeated use – to minimise irreparable damage or distortion of components and materials during repeated assembly and disassembly procedures, to allow for the rigors of repeated assembly and disassembly.
20. Allow for parallel disassembly rather than sequential disassembly – so that components or materials can be removed without disrupting other components or materials. Where this is not possible make the most reusable or ‘valuable’ parts of the building most accessible, to allow for maximum recovery of those components and materials that are most likely to be reused.
21. Provide permanent identification of component type – in a coordinated way with material information and total building system information, ideally electronically readable to international standards.
22. Use a structural grid – the grid dimension and orientation should be related to the materials used such that structural spans are designed to make the most efficient use of material type and allow coordinated relocating of components such as cladding. This will also result in more components of same/standard size, and the grid responds to issues of material efficiency.
23. Use prefabricated subassemblies and a system of mass production – to reduce site work and allow greater control over component quality and conformity. The prefabrication of these components reduces the amount of on-site work required and thereby eases the process of assembly, and later disassembly, of the building.
24. Use lightweight materials and components – this will make handling easier and quicker, making disassembly and reuse a more attractive option. This will also allow disassembly for regular maintenance and replacement of parts.
25. Permanently identify points of disassembly – so as not to be confused with other design features and to sustain knowledge on the component systems of the building. As well as indicating points of disassembly, it may be necessary to indicate disassembly procedures as instructions.
26. Provide spare parts and on-site storage for them – particularly for custom designed parts, both to replace broken or damaged components and when required for minor alterations to the building design. Storage for spare components is an integral part of the building design.
27. Retain all information on the building construction systems and assembly and disassembly procedures – efforts should be made to retain and update information such as ‘as built’ drawings, including all reuse and recycling potentials as an assets register. Refer also L3 project under Technological advancements. The retention of such complete information about the whole building enhances its potential value for relocation, reuse or recycling.

It is apparent from this list of design for disassembly principles that there will be many occasions when there will be a conflict between some of them. For example, the need to ‘minimise the number of different material types’ will not always be compatible with the need to ‘use light weight materials’. In such a case the potential environmental benefits from each principle may need to be compared and evaluated in light of the broader issues. The principles in themselves offer guidance on how to design for future disassembly, but as already noted there are broader themes that must be engaged with in order to answer the more challenging questions of what, where, when, and indeed if, to disassemble.

One of the ways in which a broader understanding of the issues can assist is illustrated in the following table which shows the relevance of the different principles to different proposed end-of-life scenarios. Table 2 rates each principle against the four end-of-life scenarios of the recycling hierarchy, and ranks them as ‘highly relevant’, ‘relevant’ or ‘not normally relevant’. This ranking allows the designer to assess the principles by the technical benefits they may produce. This offers a way, based on level of recycling, to determine the most appropriate principles to apply to a building design.

Table 2. Principles of Design for Disassembly and their relevance to the hierarchic levels of recycling

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Technological advancements

Developing technologies are likely to advance design for disassembly opportunities for designers. Material developments, computer program and software innovation, manufacturing advancements, artificial intelligence (AI) integration and 3D printing capability improvements are all likely to transform design for disassembly solutions in the future marketplace.

The Legacy Living Lab (L3) project undertaken by Curtin University Sustainability Policy (CUSP) Institute, Fremantle, WA (Figure 5), is utilising 3D design to capture building component and material information to enable traceability and reuse (Curtin University 2020). The circular economy principles applied to L3 resulted in nearly 90% of carbon emissions saved compared to common industry practices (Minunno et al 2020a; Minunno et al 2020b).

An example of a computer-based tool which is valuable for designers is The End-of-Life Design Advisor (ELDA) (Rose et al, 2001). This is a web-based tool, developed to determine what end-of-life strategy is possible according to the products' technical characteristics. The key characteristics used to measure disassembly potential are listed as follows:

• Functional complexity - high level of parts with multiple functions
• Number of materials
• Number of modules
• Number of parts
• Cleanliness of the product - amount of dirt accumulated by the product
• Hazard and hazardous materials - components that may need to be removed before further recycling
• Size
• Design cycle time between new designs
• Technology cycle time that the product will be cutting edge before new technology makes it obsolete
• Replacement lifetime that average user upgrades product
• Reason for obsolescence
• Wear out life

ELDA was developed in association with Stanford University USA and Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands. Designers are encouraged to research the latest technological advancements for systems and products to understand their impact in the built environment.

The most environmentally appropriate strategy for components and materials should be considered for the efficacy of maintaining a building’s structure and envelope.

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Conclusions

Any comprehensive strategy to design an individual building for future disassembly must operate within the existing structure of the construction industry, and the quickly developing recycling and reuse industry. The increasing importance of circular economy thinking will inform designers to review product supply chains and progress design for disassembly solutions. The individual nuances of any architectural project, and the expected long term environmental outcomes, make it difficult to propose generic principles that will always be appropriate. The guidance here should be taken as a starting point for the development of individual strategies for individual buildings.

Designing for disassembly will be of most benefit, both environmentally and economically, to clients who own their buildings for long periods of time and who periodically upgrade or retrofit them. The potential benefits will also be even greater for clients who own large numbers of buildings used for similar purposes. Three such client groups would be universities, hospitals and government departments, especially departments such as defence. In these instances, the long term benefits of designing for disassembly are more likely to be appreciated and realised even if short term economic costs are encountered. This is unlikely to be the case with developers and short term building owners who are more likely to be driven by short term economic imperatives than by environmental ones.

It can be seen that the technological steps that can be taken, through design, to improve the rates of material and component recovery in the future, are neither complex nor alien to current industry practice. Further they are compatible with general good design practice, and with attempts to improve the environmental sustainability of the construction industry. In order to facilitate best disassembly practice in the future we must practice designing for disassembly now.

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References

• Brand S (1994) How Buildings Learn: What Happens After They’re Built, Viking, New York.
• Chini AR (ed) (6 April 2001) Deconstruction and Materials Reuse; Technology, Economic and Policy, CIB Task Group 39 – Deconstruction, Annual meeting, Wellington, New Zealand.
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• Curtin University (29 October 2020) Virtual reality model of L3.
• Curtin University (13 May 2021) Legacy Living Lab.
• Ellen Macarthur Foundation (30 September 2022) ‘Circular-ish: embracing the messy reality of circular economy innovation’.
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About the Authors

Dr Philip Crowther PhD, BArch (Hons), BBE, BA (Film) is an architect and full-time lecturer at Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane. Philip teaches design and technology in the undergraduate architecture program. He has been the Australian representative on the International Council for Research and Innovation in Building and Construction (CIB) Task Group 39 - Deconstruction. As well as research interests in design for disassembly, he is interested in design for self-build and the empowerment of owner-occupiers to construct to their own needs.

Mark Thomson A.D.B.E.T. B.Arch. G.S.A.P., E.D.A.P. is an architect and founder of Eco Effective Solutions, a design, construction and research consultancy based in Brisbane. Over 30 years, Mark has been involved in developing and implementing ESD in practice, typically using green rating tools for third party certification. He is a regular industry speaker and has judged in the World Architecture Festival, Qld Premier Sustainable Awards and the Australian Banksia Sustainability Award Programs.

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