The idea works like this: before an abandoned building is torn down, crews salvage all the materials they can get from it – like wood – and keep it out of landfills. At the same time, they give the people who live in those neighborhoods the job of doing that. “It gives you a new sense of your community,” said Baltimore native Kobe Bland, who works at Brick and Board. “You start to view your community a little different because you see the potential of what could be.” What started out as the “Baltimore Wood
Because of the Upfront Carbon emissions from building, groups like the World Green Building Council have suggested that we have to “question the need to use materials at all, considering alternative strategies for delivering the desired function, such as increasing utilisation of existing assets through renovation or reuse.” They also noted that we have to “prioritize materials which are low or zero carbon, responsibly sourced, and which have low lifecycle impact in other areas.”
New Zealand Ecolabelling Trust general manager, Francesca Lipscombe, says the new ecolabel could be a game changer for the construction industry. She is pictured at the Waitakere Refuse and Recycling Centre with Auckland Council manager of waste solutions Parul Sood.
The Environmental Choice label would differentiate C&D service providers from each other by their environmental impact and mark those who were top providers and demonstrated best practice around waste minimisation and reduction.
EcoSet is a non-profit company working on a better behind-the-scenes for the production and event industries. Operating in Los Angeles, New York, Minneapolis and other cities, EcoSet redirects used sets, props and more to people in need including schools, nonprofits, theaters, filmmakers, artists and makers.
The Great Hive Mind is a striking installation made from reclaimed scaffolding poles. It contains an observation hive which is home to a colony of around 25,000 bees expected to rise to more than 50,000 by next summer.
The Graham, Anderson, Probst and White-designed building occupies a high-profile site along the Chicago River. Getty Images/iStockphoto
“The power house could have a tremendous future if we encourage something creative and clever,” Miller explains. “It takes imagination and a sensitive approach to rethink these kinds of buildings. London’s Tate Modern museum is in a former power house that sat empty for years. The Union Station property isn’t on that same scale, but it’s still an important and rare example of Art Moderne architecture in Chicago.”
The new owner shipped the Georgian-style mansion down the Tred Avon River on a 50-mile journey. The ageing property will be restored once at its new home in Queenstown, Maryland.
The rich heritage of denim spans centuries. Convinced that we were able to do something new, we drew inspiration from the techniques and processes involved in modern composite engineering and by infusing layers of denim fabric with a carefully selected resin, we have created Solid Denim.
Chelsea Pickett, Stardust’s business development manager, says the growth of metro Phoenix makes it challenging to keep up with construction demands, but more people participating in the reuse movement could ease the pressure. (Photo by Megan Marples/Cronkite News)
A 2015 Environmental Protection Agency fact sheet on construction and demolition waste found more than 545 million tons of debris ended up in landfills every year, even though 75% of those materials had the potential for reuse.
Charlie Kern, co-owner of Chrome Yellow, converts old school buses into homes on wheels on Sept. 3 in Arvada. (RJ Sangosti, The Denver Post)
“Honestly, I think part of it is that good-looking people on social media are doing it,” Kern said. “Plus, housing costs are high, especially in Denver and other major cities.”
The thoughtful restoration and adaptive reuse of the historic structure features 57 oversized, modern lofts market-rate units – boasting more than 280, 8-foot by 10-foot windows to provide each unit with expansive views and an abundance of natural light – of which 39 of the units are affordable.
SHERRY STREETER / SENTINEL PHOTO – Demolition progress on the former Swift and Co. plant in Shenandoah on Sept. 23, 2019.
The former Swift & Company plant at the corner of East Centre and North Bower, a three story brick warehouse stretching the length of the unit block of Bower, towered over the east end neighborhood since the late 1800s or early 1900s.
A breakfast nook has a parquet wooden table from the first boat Hughes built and starship sleek bench seats in which to peer out of the planet-shaped glass. Hughes calls this his “Captain Nemo window,” a nod to one of his favorite childhood books, Jules Verne’s “Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea.”
Above: Lincoln Union, built in 1970, is located at 475 E. Lincoln St. in the Phoenix warehouse district and was a former refrigerated distribution center owned by Pearce Beverage Co., which was the first Coors distributor in the Valley.
Adaptive reuse is making a big impact on commercial real estate and likely will for several years to come. According to the Urban Land Institute’s Emerging Trends in Real Estate (2019), the repurposing trend is likely to continue over the next decade. As real estate professionals, we had better be prepared to adapt.
Elizabeth Warren speaking under the arch in Washington Square Park, in New York, on Monday night, to a crowd that her campaign says numbered more than twenty thousand people.Photograph by Drew Angerer / Getty
A lectern placed on top was made from reclaimed wood from the Maine home of Frances Perkins, the early-twentieth-century labor activist. According to Warren’s campaign, the lectern was built by craftspeople at a woman-owned woodworking company based in Brooklyn, who designed the base to resemble the soapboxes that Perkins and other labor organizers would have used. It was a stage set created to reflect the central theme of Warren’s campaign: the importance of the rights of working people, and the ways that
“I’ve been on a lot of house moves where the developer will have their machine sitting right next to the house, and it’s like, ‘If this isn’t gone tomorrow, it’s demolished,’”
Europe is anticipated to account for a significant share of the global construction & demolition waste recycling market. The region is estimated to be followed by North America. Demand for construction & demolition waste recycling market in Europe is rising due to the increase in awareness about environmental protection and government regulations on landfills and promotions for recycling. Asia Pacific also offers significant growth potential for construction & demolition waste recycling, as the building & c
The most interesting architectural feature of the Rehoboth Public School is its modernist, art deco-style main entrance.
“Because of the salvage value, and the fact the contractor could do the work in the summer when there were few people on site, we were able to get a relatively low demolition cost, so everybody wins,” said Bassett.
The house’s owner was told by a man who worked in a local salvage yard that the wood for the kitchen’s window seat was used in the building of the Titanic.
Contractor Alex Clarke was carefully taking the single-car garage apart by hand, separating various building materials for reuse and recycling, when he pulled off an interior wall to discover hundreds of newspapers and magazines. Nailed in neat stacks between the studs as insulation and protected between cardboard, much of the paper was in surprisingly good condition.
“It’s an incredible opportunity for not only historic preservation, but also adaptive reuse,” says Atwood. The Portland, Oregon, office of fintech platform Expensify is housed in the 100-year-old First National Bank. There’s no denying that it’s a 21st-century office, but many of the original design elements remain intact.
The redwood boards they’re recovering from the library are a wide range of shapes and sizes and they’ll use them for a number of student projects, including siding the first ever CR tiny house. They’ll also run it through the Architectural Millworks class to use as molding and trim on next year’s student-built house, which will be constructed in an historic neighborhood in Eureka. Using this old growth redwood will tie the new house in with the aesthetic of the neighborhood and maintain its historic integri
Poppy Johnston | 17 September 2019
As resources become scarcer, building owners may one day be able to sell walls, ceilings and floors to other developers, instead of demolishing them.
In practise, circular construction is all about the “connections, joints and system layers,” says Guldager Jensen. For example, windows might be attached using a mechanical method rather than glue, or lime mortar might be used rather than concrete mortar.“It’s about being able to think about the mechanics and being able to do it in reversible ways.”
Stan Bullard
Once the home of a leading national maker of horse blankets, the former National Blanket Building on Cleveland’s West Side could be repurposed as affordably priced apartments for families.
“We’re afraid bricks may fall from it,” he said of the three-story factory dating from 1890 that was expanded until it covers a city block. He’s excited, though, because plans to renovate it to new use are taking shape. “It will mean a lot for the neighborhood in terms of morale because it’s the largest building here and it’s been vacant so long,” León said, “in addition to the economic benefit of it being put back into use.”
Deconstruction of the Mercantile in downtown Missoula prior to construction of the Marriott. (Home ReSource)
From an energy perspective, it saves about 95 percent of the energy that would be required to produce the same materials, and it also has major implications for waste reduction, job creation, and historical preservation. The Home Resource-led deconstruction of the Missoula Mercantile building in 2017 is a great example of deconstruction in our community. It diverted hundreds of thousands of board feet of old-growth lumber away from the landfill and reintroduced it into Missoula’s economy.
Dennis Fano with a Serus T in Novo’s Nashville workshop
Dennis Fano’s Novo brand builds remarkable electric guitars from tempered and reclaimed timber, and we have never encountered structurally similar guitars with more natural resonance. I’ve also played some recent ultra-high-end Les Paul replicas made from very old wood that already sound like they’re decades old.
using old shelves, pallets, and branches from fallen trees, dambo has built the giant wooden trolls. the installation marks the 15th anniversary of the electronic festival as a gift to the local community. over 200 volunteers helped to collect the materials needed before dambo and a crew of 15 people spent 25 weeks building the sculptures.
K.C. Conway offered the keynote speech at the 15th Anniversary of the Puerto Rico Chapter of the CCIM Institute celebrated in La Concha Hotel in San Juan. >Courtesy CCIM
From the start, Conway pointed out that the OZ and the adaptive reuse of old and unused structures could lead to a much-needed investment push that could help the U.S. territory find its way out of recession.
“What we hadn’t planned on was the opportunity to not only create a dream space, but to participate in preserving a former church that may have otherwise been knocked down to make way for more heinous condo boxes,” says Mike. For the project, he also won the Grand Jury Award for Adaptive Reuse of an existing building by the Preservation Alliance for Greater Philadelphia.
Ever think about what happens what is going to happen to your building design after 50 years?Well most people don’t, and we would like to change that.With so much existing building demolition happening in Seattle, we will touch on designing for smarter demolition.Join us for the discussion of community and carbon benefits of strategic reuse of deconstructed building materials, and how you can go above and beyond typical demolition recycling practices.
The castle’s exterior mixes architectural styles, including 13th-century French Gothic. / Photo by Michele Snow
He scoured Europe for architectural salvage, buying up archways, façades, windows, and wall panels from the rubble of World War I. These centuries-old artifacts were incorporated alongside new construction materials (including wood intentionally weathered with seawater for an old-timey look). The result so impressed John D. Rockefeller, an avid art collector, that the tycoon used it as a model for the Cloisters in New York—the only museum in the United States to exclusively showcase art from the Middle Ages
Since 2016, one-fourth of whole houses that were taken down in Palo Alto were deconstructed instead of demolished. This means workers were required to disassemble structures so materials could be recycled. The new policy intends to bring the successes of deconstruction to a city-wide scale. The ordinance will impact approximately 114 projects annually, according to a City Council Staff Report.
Everything from lumber to nails is being recycled from Avon’s Hahnewald barn. The barn is being dismantled to make way for a new wastewater treatment facility.
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The wood and other materials will be conveyed to Salvage Design Center, which will sell the reclaimed barn material. Given interest from some community members, the district worked with Salvage Design Center to sell the reclaimed barn materials locally at a 50% discount from their Denver showroom prices.
“I was able to make a deal with him to purchase this material,” he said. “With diligent deconstruction efforts, we were able to reclaim approximately 15,000 board feet of beautiful, circle-sawn heart pine lumber.”
Whether sustainability was their main objective or not, Calgarians have come up with a variety of ways to upcycle and repurpose everything from skateboards to skulls. Global News
The store’s goal is zero waste: everything produced can be recycled, composted and repurposed while highlighting the local, creative market with people and resources from the community. “It keeps more money in our local economy so we’re more socially responsible, but also it uses [fewer] resources when you’re purchasing local-made stuff as opposed to imports, so better for the environment long term,” Work said.
For the first six months of 2018, Holiber worked on the flock’s wooden frames, using reclaimed lumber from Big Reuse, a surplus salvage vendor in Brooklyn, and scraps he collected from the streets.
They also completely remodeled the kitchen, adding marmoleum flooring, salvaged century-old walnut and birch cabinets, and a unique countertop. “We found a section of bowling alley lane. I edged it in walnut,” Sours said.
The bespoke cabinets are made from reclaimed floorboards. They and the table are lightened with quick-drying chalk paint, which the owner says is a decorator’s dream due to its malleability.
Saint Pierre is sourcing her granite material directly from the building site for her prototypes (seen here), which she hopes will be incorporated into the new design. Courtesy Anna Saint Pierre
Acknowledging how large a carbon power the building industry is, Saint Pierre identifies the need for crafting new hybrid building blocks. This imperative has led her to formulate an atomistic understanding of architectonics. In her prototypes, stone slabs are smashed into rubble, then crushed into powders, compacted into terrazzo, or sandwiched into gabion walls.
Windmill fan blades and motor housing components wait for disposal at the Casper Regional Landfill. Some 1,000 pieces from decommissioned wind turbines will be disposed of at the CRL by 2020, bringing an estimated $675,485 in new revenue to the landfill. (Photo courtesy of the Casper Regional Landfill staff)
Researchers at Washington State University are looking for ways to reuse the fiberglass components of aged-out turbines, but no practical commercial applications have yet been found. There is some hope that ground up blades can be used to create building materials, among other things.
Material passports specify the position, availability and value of the materials in your buildings. They support the circular economy by making it easier to identify and reuse products, tapping into inherent value rather than squandering it and starting from scratch. Instead of ‘crushing buildings into pretty useless rubble,’ as circular economy expert Duncan Baker-Brown of BBM Sustainable Design explains, material passports make beneficial deconstruction, or even keeping a building, more likely.
The grain elevator — the last in the county — remains, and an old scale serves as the front patio, Wild Goose really shines by continuing to connect rural residents through coffee and food.
Ruthie Mundell stands among new and vintage chandeliers—all salvaged and ready to find a new home. (Teresa Carey)
“You have a grassroots momentum for something like deconstruction, and you have a massive industry against it,” says Sara Badiali.
The building material reuse consultant thinks regulations are an effective way to make a change. Yet, she has searched the world and “can’t find any place that actually has the words ‘building deconstruction’ in legislation.”
Badiali worked with the city of Portland, Oregon, to create the nation’s first reuse ordinance. Now, Portland homes built before 1916 must be evaluated for deconstruction. Other cities like San Francisco and Milwaukee are drafting their own ordinances.
Most of that material salvaged from the old Mercantile made their way to Home ReSource. Roughly 200,000 board feet of lumber ended up in new projects across Missoula. MRA required deconstruction as part of the Mercantile project. (Martin Kidston/Missoula Current file photo)
Over the past few years, and with sustainability in mind, MRA has given preference to certain building materials. It also encourages deconstruction over demolition when possible, even if doing so costs a little more.“We’re constrained by state law on how we can spend our funds, but if you take the facade improvement program, one of the underpinnings of that is sustainability,” said MRA director Ellen Buchanan. “Our deconstruction policy is also huge. The city can’t require deconstruction, but we can.”
Repurposing and revitalizing discarded materials is a driving force behind ReRoot’s business philosophy. Every product under ReRoot is made with at least some – if not all – repurposed materials. Some of these materials were once tools and equipment to begin with.
“We thank everyone for their hard work. We can breathe a sigh of relief that we no longer have to worry about the rickhouse coming down on its own. Now we can concentrate efforts on our barrel recovery.”
images courtesy of thomas dambo
