Hi all,
Last year, Nexii challenged ourselves to disassemble one of our early concept buildings for reuse, and document the process. We worked with Light House Sustainability Society and Rob Sianchuk LCA consulting to quantify waste reduction, embodied carbon and socio-economic benefits from deconstruction, versus conventional demolition of wood and steel stud designs. This week we released a case study on the project which can be accessed via our website here:
Highlights: 99.8% of waste was diverted from landfill and the project generated over 350 employment hours. Our LCA results suggest that nearly 70% of the embodied carbon from panel manufacturing (Modules A-C) is offset from design for deconstruction (DfD) and reuse (Module D). This is largely a result of CO2e savings in material manufacturing for the next use of the panels, and to a lesser extent waste disposal savings.
Would love to hear from others pursuing DfD as to the trade-offs between low carbon building products and design for deconstruction / reuse. In particular, thinking about balancing renewal cycles between construction components, and selecting materials to begin with that are able to withstand the disassembly process.
Zosia