Innovations Category Examples: Component, Tool, Policy, or Education
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Component
From the roof to the foundation, lifecycle building focuses on developing ways to facilitate reuse of each component within a building. For example, windows can be designed for easy removal by creating detachable sills, or structural insulated panels can be attached with innovative connectors reducing the number of nails used. The following nail-free paneling examples demonstrate how lifecycle design develops components that maintain the highest value of a material.
Nail Free Paneling
Nails and screws degrade the materials and can make disassembly more time consuming and difficult. The Chartwell School case study explored paneling material use reduction and nail free paneling systems.
Concrete Blocks
An emphasis of lifecycle building is facilitating reuse of materials that have large amounts of embodied carbon dioxide (CO2). Concrete, in particular, produces large quantities of CO2 during production. Attempts to recycle concrete actually result in downcycling, as the concrete is crushed and reused as lower grade base or fill material. However, by placing cold joints in between concrete blocks, the architects who worked on the Chartwell School created a mechanism for easier removal and reuse of individual concrete blocks.
The simplicity and ingenuity evident within the above examples of lifecycle design lends itself to creativity, and contestants are strongly encouraged to develop building component entries that support innovative building material reuse.
Policy, Tool, Service, or Education
Without innovative strategies and tools used to disassemble structures, reuse of building components would be difficult. Experts in lifecycle building have created their own mechanisms for taking apart buildings, salvaging materials with modified pry bars and tactics of the trade.
Existing barriers limit building material recovery and reuse, for example:
- nails and glues that make disassembly difficult and result in degraded materials
- the high costs of labor for disassembling and separating a building
- lack of communication of a building’s plans to future owners
- few tools to easily disassemble buildings
- an absence of policy strategies to promote lifecycle building
- lack of policies and educational programs promoting reuse
Policy, Service, or Education
Contestants have the opportunity to enact change and create solutions that address the above barriers and greatly improve material reuse.
Submission Ideas:
- Building material or component product stewardship or producer responsibility proposal
- Permit conditions, policies, or tax shifts to promote lifecycle building
- Innovative insurance proposals to reduce the costs of deconstruction and building materials reuse operations
- U.S. Green Building Council Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) lifecycle building credit language
- Use of radio frequency identification tag (RFID) or other technologies to support future adaptation and deconstruction
- Educational proposals to support lifecycle building and building material reuse
Tool
These are examples of existing tools designed to promote construction and reuse:
Lead Based Paint Planer
Some materials used in the past, such as lead based paints, rendered valuable materials unusable because of their toxicity. Lifecycle building focuses on minimizing chemical solvents and glues because they can make disassembly more difficult. However, to overcome barriers to deconstruction, tools such as the lead based paint planer were developed to harvest lead based painted wood and safely remove and contain the lead based paint for proper disposal.
Denailer Gun
Nails are a very common and important impediment to disassembly. Recognizing that removing nails required a lot of manual labor, experts in deconstruction invented a denailer gun, a pneumatic device to remove nails from building materials. The denailer gun minimizes the time used in removing nails and damage caused to materials in extracting nails, optimizing the potential for reuse.
