Deconstruction in the Lifecycle of Constructions
Extended Abstract – Master Thesis in Civil Engineering
Manuel Guilherme Palma Leal Ceppas Catarino
Department of Civil Engineering, Instituto Superior Técnico, Lisbon University,
Avenida Rovisco Pais, Lisbon 1049-001, Portugal
October 2014
Abstract
A significant amount of waste is generated by the demolition of constructions. Some of the waste
generated by buildings that have had their end of life determined by the end of their functionality may
probably still have value, and its disposal might be prevented. Deconstruction is the process of
removing the waste in the form of construction materials or elements maintaining it s integrity in order
to reintegrate in another construction work.
The objectives of this study are to understand the reasons that lead to the excessive consume of
resources and high levels of waste production in construction; to learn what deconstruction habits and
techniques are currently applied by entities linked to the construction sector; to identify aspects in
which deconstruction could be better practiced without adding significant complexity in the mode of
operation of a deconstruction related company; to indirectly reduce the production of construction
waste and the consumption of virgin raw material by giving a deeper understanding of the concept and
process of deconstructing and suggesting it as a solution for forthcoming construction or demolitio n
works; and to seek a unique information technology solution that can contribute to reducing the
premature end of life of building elements and materials.
The two main obstacles that Deconstruction is facing are the lack of legislation promoting its
practice separately from recycling, and the risk involved in not finding a suitable receiver for the
deconstructed materials that brought up the costs of demolition.
Keywords: Deconstruction, C&DW Management; Sustainability; Lifecycle Assessment; Demolition
Planning.
1. Introduction
All over the world mankind is evolving. Tradition links us to our past, without it we would lose our
identity. But some traditions can’t be kept. They come from a time where humanity didn’t have to worry
about the problems of today, and to be unable to abandon these traditions may be our sentence.
Ravaging economic growth isn’t anymore the key to evolution, but to grow in a sustainable way,
investing in the future generations and having into consideration the legacy that will be left for them.
No construction work is eternal, when a building reaches a certain stage of its life it has to face
obsolescence. In the same way that the bearing capacity of a chain corresponds to the capacity of its
weakest link, the life of a building also corresponds to the durability of its first element to have reached
its lifecycle end (Lobato dos Santos, 2010). This can happen due many different reasons, such as
inadaptability to new technologies, unintegrated architectural design, end of motive for existence, or
even the need for an amount of repairs so expensive that it’s deemed not worth prolonging its
existence. Depending on the circumstance, there is a choice to be made in which approach should be
taken for the obsolete construction. The choice dwells between repairing, demolishing or abandoning
the construction.
The demolition of a building is traditionally a waste generating process. The generated waste can
be taken care of with different levels of concern. A conventional demolition seeks only to remove the
construction materials from the worksite, and with that sole intent, the easiest way to remove it is the
destruction of its elements without concern for the characteristics of each.
In the case of seeking a selective approach regarding the type of materials to demolish (selective
demolition) there is the possibility to separate waste by material composition, so that materials with
different characteristics can have different destinations, including recycling or deposit. But it can often
be found that not all elements of a construction in demolition phase have reached the end of their
useful life. Some may be in excellent condition, and destroying them would be a loss. Buildings that
have been subject of recent partial rehabilitation are an example of a good source of construction
elements that may have a significant amount of material whose lifetime is far from expiry.
The process of deconstruction is defined as the careful removal of these materials with the intent
to re-integrate them into a new construction or rehabilitation work. Through this process it’s possible to
give construction elements an effective service life closer to its maximum service life, while
simultaneously reducing the production of demolition waste, the extraction of virgin raw materials and
reducing the energy costs that result from their transformation.
Deconstruction can also be viewed as a concept that includes not onl y the activity of
deconstruction, but also the industry of Deconstruction and its inherent activities like designing for
deconstruction,
the
refurbishment
of
deconstructed
materials
and
deconstruction
materials
management.
Deconstruction can take part along the lifecycle of a construction from its birth to its cradle. Before
its building process, a construction can be designed taking into account its future deconstructability.
During its construction phase and repairs a construction can incorporate used constructed materials
that originated from deconstruction processes, and in its lifecycle end a construction can be
dismantled into components/materials, henceforth as above cited, deconstructed.
2
The term Deconstruction isn’t solely reserved to the meaning of which this thesis document uses
it mostly. It was used by French philosopher Jacques Derrida in on 1967 in his work Of
Grammatology, defining Deconstruction as a way of criticizing not only both literary and philosophical
texts but also political institutions through which it was intended to be impossible to demonstrate a
strict interpretation of texts (the conflict between the various possible meanings of the same word).
While conducting investigation on Deconstruction other meanings can be found for the term
Deconstruction, even if searching for both terms “deconstruction” and “constructions” at the same
time, the results may be different from the expected. A common example is to stumble upon results of
the works by Christopher S. Butler and Javier Martín Arista, Deconstructing Constructions
(Christopher S. Butler, 2009), which refers to Construction Grammar approaches and the roles these
constructions play in the frameworks which can be located within a multidimensional functi onalcognitive space.
2. Sustainability in Construction
The term sustainability can be obtained by agglutination of the terms ability and sustainable.
Sustainability can therefore be considered as the ability to be sustainable. While the term ability is selfexplanatory, the term sustainable refers to the ability to survive without consuming more resources
than those which are produced. Something sustainable is something that can survive without
exhausting the provision of resources from the environment where it gathers them added to the
resources it produces on its own. Opposed to the term sustainable, something unsustainable is
something that in given time will deplete its source.
In construction, however, there is no creation of resources. The Construction industry is an
industry of resource consumption and transformation. Construction by itself will not reset the
resources consumed. The Construction industry can only be considered sustainable when analyzed in
conjunction with its constructions lifecycle. To fully assess sustainability in construction, it is necessary
to evaluate the amount of resources saved from raw natural extraction or production of waste over the
life of the construction works, the Lifecycle Assessment. Therefore, the role of sustainability in
construction is a global role, evaluating not just the consumption of resources during the act of building
or demolishing, but also the environmental impacts of the given construction along its lifetime.
The growing consumption of raw materials observed in recent decades has generated resource
scarcity. Although there has also been an increase in the concern to reduce resource consumption
(Global Reporting Initiative, 2010/11), the consumption rate remains well above the replacement rate
by nature. According to (FootprintNetwork, 2014), the planet is currently consuming one and a half
times the amount of resources that can replenish. The forecast for 2050, if the estimated consumption
rate growth is kept, is that this planet is to consume close to triple the capacity of its renewal. (Julian
M. Allwood, 2010). This scarcity of resources not only can be scientifically analyzed via consultation of
documentation but is also empirically visible by the increasing price of raw material, which makes
sense due to reduced supply.
3
Figure 1 - Current and estimated population resource consumption in comparison to the
world's resource regeneration (source: (FootprintNetwork, 2014)).
Increased production of waste comes as a direct consequence of the increase in raw material
consumption. The existing ecological deficit is coming closer to exhaust the productive capacity of
nature, and its absorptive capacity of residues. Due to the community concerns regarding
environmental impacts in developed areas, it is now more complicated to create new landfills. On the
other side, location of landfills in remote locations increases transportation costs and energy use.
The increase of resource consumption and waste production is very much attributable to the
construction industry. It is responsible for creating about 40 percent of the waste emissions worldwide
(Udayangani Kulatunga, 2006). According to (Torgal & Jalali, 2007), the C&DW represent one third of
the waste produced in the European space, approximately 500 Mt in the date of the study (2007). In
Portugal, about 4.4 Mt were estimated to have been produced during 2004, which could be reused
and from which 95 precent went to landfill.
In order to gradually reduce the production of waste, Europe has defined milestones, setting goals
for the various types of waste. According to (European Commission, 2011), the Waste Framework
Directive (WFD) requires Member States (MS) to take any necessary measures to achieve a minimum
target of 70 percent (by weight) of C&D waste by 2020 for preparation for re-use, recycling and other
material recovery, including backfilling operations using non-hazardous C&D waste to substitute other
materials.
Construction and demolition waste has been identified as a priority waste stream by the European
Union. There is a high potential for recycling and re-use of C&DW, since some of its components have
a high resource value (European Comission, 2014).
Although (Mark D. Webster, 2005) states that reuse is the most desirable option because it is
most effective in reducing the demand for virgin resources and reducing waste, in this thesis authors
4
opinion, reusing materials has the added challenge of deconstruction, storage and adaptation. One
can’t say that deconstructing and reusing will be more or less effective than any other solution,
because it greatly depends on case specific variables.
Recycling demands complex industrial processes. The amount of consumed energy depends on
the type of material that is recycled. For recycling to achieve its maximum efficiency, the waste has to
be separated with a great care. In the same way that reusing’s costs depend on a large number of
variables, so does recycling. Recycled materials can result in more or less valuable materials than its
source. These processes are called “upcycling” and “downcycling”.
Figure 2 - Waste Management Hierarchy for demolition and construction operations (source:
(Kibert, Chini, & Langue, 2001)).
3. Deconstruction in the Lifecycle of Constructions
There are many published definitions of the term Deconstruction. The general definition given by
authors like (Bradley Guy, 2002) or (Lobato dos Santos, 2010) is to consider deconstruction to be “the
process of building disassembly in order to recover the maximum amount of materials for their highest
and best re-use”. Other publications like (Greer, 2005), (Macozoma, 2001) or the non-official but
largely consulted (Wikipedia) give the definition for deconstruction in a simpler manner as
“construction in reverse”. Both definitions are given to the word while expressing an activit y or
process.
In Portugal, it can be assumed that the concept of Deconstruction is largely unknown both to the
general public, as well as the community of the construction sector (Armanda Bastos Couto, 2007).
5
Besides the general inertia to mindset change in the Construction industry sector, one of the reasons
that helps explaining this is the fact that, as stated before, the term Deconstruction has been claimed
in the past by Jacques Derrida on 1967 in his work Of Grammatology, defining Deconstruction as a
way of criticizing not only both literary and philosophical texts but also political institutions.
In resemblance of the word Construction, the term Deconstruction can be used to define the
economic sector of the “Deconstruction” of works, or the process or activity to “deconstruct”. To make
this distinction, when referring to the “Deconstruction” sector it’s often used the allocation of capital
letter on the proper name, and the lowercase letter designating the activity of “deconstructing” (Lobato
dos Santos, 2010).
There are exceptions of application, while in a given context the word “construction” may refer to a
building in order to indicate something that was the result of a process of construction, it’s indicating
some object which has physical form and is physically present. That statement cannot be made by
similar application of the term deconstruction because the process of deconstructing causes a removal
of material. The result of a work of deconstruction isn’t a sole object but a set of construction materials
or construction elements which can’t be referred to as a deconstruction. Still, the process of
undergoing a deconstruction operation can be considered as a deconstruction, in t he way a worksite
in which are taking place deconstruction activities can be referred as a “deconstruction”.
In Australia the deconstruction of 70 to 100 year old timber houses is a common practice with
about 80 percent of the materials being recovered and reused for renovation and remodeling of
existing homes or in the construction of new, replica housing. The relocation of houses is also a
common practice, with 1000 homes being moved in the Melbourne area each year out of a total
housing stock of 800000 units. For residential structures it is estimated that between 50 and 80
percent of the materials are recovered in the demolition process. The recovery of materials from
commercial buildings is significantly lower with a total recovery rate of about 69 perc ent (58 percent
reuse and 11 percent recycled).
In Germany, between 1991 and 1999 several case studies on Deconstruction were conducted
and revealed an exceptionally high recovery rate, in excess of 95 percent for many structures.
German studies that investigated deconstruction methods show that optimized deconstruction
combining manual and machine dismantling can reduce the required time for a conventional
deconstruction by a factor of 2 with a recovery rate of 97 percent.
In the Netherlands strict government regulations ensure that about 80 percent of C&DW materials
are reused or recycled and used in other constructions, generally in creating materials for road base.
The Dutch law states that “dumping of reusable building waste is prohibited” thus forcing even higher
rates of recovery. Efforts were done to inform architects and other actors in the construction industry
about the potential for designing buildings for deconstruction.
In Norway between 25 and 50 percent of the 978000milion tons of demolition waste is estimated
to be recycled or reused in the Oslo region.
6
According to (Tulay Esin, 2007), in Turkey, mostly in Istanbul’s outlying suburbs there are building
material collectors. The collected salvaged building materials are sold in open and semi-open
salvaged building material outlets. At these outlets, wood and PVC doors and windows, kitchen and
bathroom components, strips, tiles, plastic pipes, asbestos roofing sheets, wooden lath, and others
are sold, in good and bad shape, mostly to low income wage earners.
Although no international laws were found directly obliging the reuse or deconstruction of
construction materials there are some national or local regulations that have empowered the
deconstruction practice. There was a time limitation in this effort due to a difficulty to contact area
specialists from the various local urban departments of the different Town Halls, as well as a linguistic
limitation since most non-international laws are written in its national language.
In the city of Lisbon, the city’s Municipal Master Plan RPDML (in portuguese: Regulamento do
Plano Diretor Municipal de Lisboa) states on the 29 th article that “In situations of partial demolition or
total demolition and reconstruction, when considering that there are decorative elements in the
building’s facade or interior which must be preserved, such as masonry, doors, metalwork, tiles and
other decorative elements, a reinstatement project should be made by the entity with the given
competence”.
In the United States, the Deconstruction industry is currently supported by a law which has no
direct linkage to the practice of deconstruction. Under section 170 of the US Internal Revenue Code,
private individuals, corporations, and unions can to deduct from their IRS a portion of the amount
corresponding to the value of their donations. In order claim the charitable contribution deduction there
are certain criteria that must be met (About Money, 2014):

Donations must be made in the form of cash or property (a pledge or promise to donate is not
deductible until it’s actually paid);

Donations can only be made to a qualified tax-exempt organization;

The donator must be able to itemize (giving to charity is a great tax planning strategy, but it
only works for people who are eligible to itemize their deductions)

The donator must meet record keeping requirements (this includes saving canceled checks,
acknowledgment letters from the charity, and appraisals for donated property)
Tax exempt organizations are need to be recognized under the section 501(c)(3) of the US
Internal Revenue Code. The Deconstruction non-profit companies benefit from this code by issuing
tax-deductible receipts in exchange for donations of used construction materials and furniture. In the
website of a Deconstruction company (The ReBuilding Center, 2014) it is claimed that they will give a
tax-deductible receipt and documentation for all materials salvaged and donated.
In the Netherlands the Dutch Government there is a law passed on the first of April 1997 which
briefly states that “the dumping of reusable building waste is prohibited” (Bart J.H. te Dorsthorst,
2000).This law promotes the use of alternatives to landfill which supports Deconstruction.
7
4. Deconstruction Supporting Platform
One of the greatest barriers to the development of the Deconstruction industry is the lack of
linkage between demolition works and construction works. There are companies that recei ve
deconstructed materials and refurbish them into buildable conditions, but there isn’t a very well established connection between these used materials suppliers and the building contractors or design
engineers.
In order to design for deconstruction, the design engineers need to know which materials are
available. Most of the used material stores don’t have or keep an updated online database. Even if the
inventory was kept online and up to date, a building designer or contractor would need to consult the
inventory of numerous used materials suppliers for each building they were to work on, which would
take a significant amount of time. Deconstructions from source to destination have the reduced effort
of not needing to consult used materials suppliers. But on the other hand, this type of deconstructions
would have an added aggravation from the fact that the built patrimony is heterogeneous and its
buildings designs are complex and weren’t thought for deconstruction. These characteristics make it
difficult to find a good match between a deconstructed materials source worksite and construction that
can receive those materials.
The data involved in the Deconstruction industry is complex, and the system isn’t reacting in an
effective way. Intending to fill this need, this thesis responds by studying the conceptual creation of a
Deconstruction supporting platform. The conceptualization of the Deconstruction supporting platform
was intended ever since the beginning of the works involved in the creation of this thes is. Its aim is
inspire other entities to develop it into implementation. Due to the character of this thesis and the
authors
knowledge not
being extended into the areas
of computer science or arts, the
conceptualization of the Deconstruction supporting platform isn’t intended to reach the realms of
programming or graphic design
The web listed deconstructed materials companies follow two overall very similar business
models. There are the regular reused building material companies and the non-profit reused building
material organizations. Both ask the client for information and pictures about the materials and offer a
rough tender free of charge. If there are significant amounts of interesting salvageable materials and
the client is willing to accept the estimated value the deal is closed and the deconstruction process is
started. The non-profit organizations give tax-deductible receipts in the agreed amount in exchange for
the materials while the regular companies pay for them.
Generally, both deconstructed materials types of companies (profiting and non-profit) provide the
labor for extracting the materials with their own teams of experienced deconstruction workers.
The platform is intended to link entities involved in demolitions, constructions, and middle entities
as the deconstructed materials companies. Demolition involved entities are demolition companies,
owners of constructions who are planned to be demolished, or anyone who may be entitled to
ownership of the materials from a building. Construction involved entities can be contractors, building
8
designers, architects, or construction investors. Deconstructed materials companies are used
materials suppliers, used materials refurbishment companies, and any entity that may be interested in
acquiring used construction materials for storage, refurbishing and resale.
On the first connection the user makes with the platform, he is greeted and asked which the three
categories of users does he fit in. The access can only be granted though registration, verification and
login. Once validated, demolition involved entities will be able to publish the materials or building
elements that they see as valuable assets. These publications are accessible to all users.
Deconstructed materials companies will also be able to publish the materials or elements they have in
storage, being these publications of access to all users. Construction involved entities only have the
need to access published information, therefore they cannot publish.
Figure 2 - Diagram of the connections between the Decontruction supporting platform's
clients and the platform itself (source: created by the author).
For a user to publish a construction material or element that he’s selling on the platform a
“construction material/element publishing form” must be filled online. As a result of the submission of
multiple publishing forms the database starts to have a wide variety of materials/elements to be
consulted. It’s now possible for the potential buyers to start searching the platform for their needs.
5. Conclusions and future developments
Deconstruction may apply to recovering materials from a building that is going to be demolished
or, sometimes, apply to the total dislocation of a building. The definitions of the different
deconstruction works haven’t yet been differentiated. A future development is suggested on defining
the works of deconstruction individually, with emphasis on their characteristics and limitations.
The distinction between reusing or recycling C&DW isn’t yet legally made. With no laws promoting
the activity of deconstructing and with a Recycling industry in a stage of development years ahead the
Deconstruction industry probably won’t be able to grow to its full potential anytime soon. A work is
9
proposed on analyzing the legal system and studying the possibility of legally separating these two
different ways of C&DW treatment.
This study presents the conceptualization of a Deconstruction supporting platform targeted at the
entities involved in construction, deconstruction and demolition worldwide. It is a concept that, if well
implemented, can create a network between the above mentioned entities that will result in
foreseeable increase of resource efficiency. With the collaboration from these entities and their
associations with a research institute a much deeper knowledge of the needs of the Deconstruction
industry can be obtained and applied in the development of the Deconstruction supporting platform.
This development can obtain its maximum results when combined with a professional team of web
designers and programmers. For a future work it is proposed the full creation, development and
implementation of the Deconstruction supporting platform.
References
About
Money.
(2014).
About
Money.
Retrieved
10
7,
2014,
from
http://taxes.about.com/od/deductionscredits/a/CharityDonation.htm
Armanda Bastos Couto, J. P. (2007). The Construction Portuguese Industry Seems to Ignore the
Deconstruction Method. Construction for developement : proceedings of the CIB World Building
Congress 2007. Cape Town, South Africa.
Bart J.H. te Dorsthorst, T. K. (2000). From Grave to Cradle Reincarnation of Building Materials.
Maastricht: Aeneas, Vol. 71, No. 4.
Bradley Guy, M. E. (2002). A Guide to Deconstruction. Gainesville, Florida: University of Florida.
Christopher S. Butler, J. M. (2009). Deconstructing Constructions. Swansea: John Benjamin
Publishing Company.
European
Comission.
(2014).
European
Comission.
Retrieved
09
19,
2014,
from
http://ec.europa.eu/environment/waste/construction_demolition.htm
European Commission. (2011). Service Contract on Management of Construction and Demolition
Waste – SR1, Final Report Task 2. Villa Deshayes, France: European Commission.
FootprintNetwork. (2014, Setembro). Global Footprint Network . Retrieved Setembro 14, 2014, from
http://footprintnetwork.org/en/index.php/GFN/page/world_footprint/
Global Reporting Initiative. (2010/11). A new phase: the growth of sustainability reporting. Amsterdam:
Global Reporting Initiative.
Greer, D. (2005). Manhatan Deconstruction Project. Retrieved September 29, 2014, from
Deconstrution Institute: http://www.deconstructioninstitute.com/casestudy_print.php?cas_ID=49
Julian M. Allwood, M. F. (2010). Material efficiency: A white paper. Elsevier, Vol. 55, Issue 3.
Kibert, C., Chini, A., & Langue, J. (2001). Deconstruction as an essential component of sustainable
construction. Gainesville, FL, USA: University of Florida.
Lobato dos Santos, A. (2010). Descontrução de Edifícios: Uma Perspectiva Arquitectónica. Lisbon:
Instituto Superior Técnico.
Macozoma, D. S. (2001). Building Deconstruction. CIB/CSIR 2001. Pretoria: CSIR.
Mark D. Webster, B. M. (2005). Green Salvage Solutions —Reusing Roofing and Structural. The
Construction Specifier.
The ReBuilding Center. (2014). DeConstruction, a Service of The ReBuilding Center. Retrieved 10 7,
2014, from http://rebuildingcenter.org/deconstruction -services/about/
Torgal, F. P., & Jalali, S. (2007). Construção sustentável. O caso dos materiais de Construção.
Congresso Construção 2007 - 3.º Congresso Nacional. Castelo Branco, Portugal: Universidade do
Minho.
Tulay Esin, N. C. (2007). A Study Conducted to Reduce Construction Waste Generation in Turkey.
Elsevier, Volume 42, Issue 4.
Udayangani Kulatunga, D. A. (2006). Attitudes and perceptions of construction workforce on
construction waste in Sri Lanka. Management of Environmental Quality: An International Journal, Vol.
17 Issue 1.
Wikipedia. (2014). Deconstruction (building). Retrieved 10 2, 2014, from Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deconstruction_%28building% 29
10