After-Care; Catalogue of Dismantled Materials Repurposed In a New Building Context

Abstract

The building sector has focused strongly on improving sustainable production processes, but has cared far less about the later lifecycle stages of demolition and material aftercare. As a result, the sector remains far from achieving cradle-to-cradle resource flows and continues to be a major contributor to national greenhouse emissions. This thesis has explored how architects can engage with demolition processes and establish more sustainable resource flows when on-site preservation or transformation is not politically convinced. Rather than opposing new construction, the thesis has investigated how demolition and new construction can be linked to create circular material flows. The thesis practically explored this in the context of Gothenburg through a mapping exercise of a school building scheduled for demolition. The materials found during the mapping were later transferred to a new food court building at Södra Älvstranden in Gothenburg, an area that awaits large-scale transformation and new construction in the coming years. Through a resource mapping method, the thesis has developed a catalogue of reusable components from a donor building and further applied them in the design of a new architectural project. To connect material lifecycle endings to beginnings, the thesis has proposed a design-driven approach to care for materials previously seen as waste. It aims to move architectural design beyond the early stages of a materials lifecycle and has investigated ways to work simultaneously across both the early and later stages. The thesis has found it beneficial to use resource mapping to reduce building waste. The method provided a clear framework for the design process, in which form necessarily followed availability. It successfully achieved the aim of caring for materials previously considered waste. The project also covered clear challenges in providing for the full construction requirements of the new design. There was a clear challenge in reusing materials categorised as in-between layers, as they were porous and difficult to dismantle without damage. In future investigations, mapping a conceptual donor as a resource for a new building design would benefit from a larger mapping exercise, perhaps using waste from several demolition projects that provide a larger database, and thereby increase the reuse opportunities.