Revised Proposal Submitted for U-Reap Scholarship Program

Designing for Disassembly

Summary Statement
With the impacts of environmental hazards from our traditional life style beginning to show, thinking green is becoming typical. A large amount of the waste consuming our landfills is from construction, demolition and renovation waste, designing to disassemble is an effective way to eliminate as much of that waste as possible through the re-use of materials elsewhere.
Purpose
Designing for disassembly is an innovative approach to building design in which buildings are being designed and constructed so they may be disassembled when the time comes for demolition allowing them to be reconstructed elsewhere. Instead of the traditional method of adding the old demolition waste to our landfills, a building designed to be disassemble would take the individual components of a building and re-use them to construct a new building.
Goals and Objectives
The research aims to:
- study the amount of waste that is a result of different variations of construction and demolition and gain an understanding of the impact on land-fills and environment,
- take a comprehensive look into the green building and renovation practice with focus on reducing the amount of waste from the “greener” method,
- research the methods and materials that would be best suited for a designing to disassemble building,
- and prepare a cost estimate, set of architectural drawings, and viable information source for the designing to disassemble process.

Methodology and Analytical Approach
Throughout the next calendar year, the research will pursue articles and studies already produced; including contacting professionals to gather opinions, experiences and predictions of the designing to disassemble approach. A new design of an already existing commercial building will be produced and compared with the traditional design, comparing factors of the project such as: cost, time, availability, strength and durability in the short and long term. The focus of the research will be based on a Canadian environment but will explore a broad range of information and examples from countries around the world.
The research will also analyze: when, where and how a designing to disassemble concept would be most and/or least effective; and compare traditional methods of design and construction with designing to disassemble methods.






Previous Studies
With the growing awareness and concern for our eco-system the earth-friendly/green approach to buildings is becoming more main stream. Even with home renovations, the Canadian Government is recognizing the need for change with rebates for home owners performing green home renovations. Studies of new concepts are on the rise, exploring new methods and materials from what we already have available in order to obtain the same quality of life with less pollution and waste. Many areas in Europe are already realizing how limited we are in our resources and are making appropriate changes, such as designing to disassemble, making them excellent sources for studies and examples. The references that have been citied on the following page are some good quality examples of studies well underway.
Plans for Dissemination
The results of the research will be broadcast with the use of an internet blog that will be updated with the research results on a regular basis. Once the research is complete an applied research report will be composed in the upcoming English 285 course of the Fall 2010 semester of the ARET Program. Concluding with a poster presentation at the TRU annual undergraduate student research conference.