By Andrea Ward
This article originally appeared on BuildingGreen.com
If the greenest building of all is one that never gets built, then the next-best thing might be a building designed to prevent unnecessary use of materials—and keep already-used building materials from ending up in the landfill. That’s the premise behind the newly released primer, “Design for Reuse,” from the San Francisco nonprofit firm Public Architecture, a group that knows a thing or two about reused building materials.
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The firm behind “ScrapHouse,” a two-story home designed and constructed using 100 percent salvaged materials, and the 1 perceng program, which invites architecture firms to donate one percent of their billable hours to pro bono projects, Public Architecture has compiled two years of research, development, and collaboration into a 125-page, freely downloadable report that uses 15 case studies to highlight projects that have made innovative use of reused—not recycled—materials. That distinction is key, according to the report, which emphasizes that building with salvaged materials removes volume from the waste stream without the additional processing (and resulting energy use) needed to create recycled-content building materials. The report also offers a list of lessons learned from the case studies on how best to integrate materials reuse into the design and construction process as both a guiding philosophy and a practical challenge.
The case studies include projects from across the building spectrum—civic, educational, residential, office, retail, interpretive, and religious—most or all of which have received accolades elsewhere for overall green design attributes. Chartwell School in Seaside, California, for example, which made waves with an ambitious design targeting net-zero energy use, draws attention here for its striking use of salvaged timbers from an army barracks deconstructed on the site, as well as wood from old wine and olive oil casks and a previously felled cypress trunk used as both a structural column and a focal point of the design. The Jewish Reconstructionist Congregation of Evanston, Illinois, the first religious center to earn LEED Platinum certification and another project highlighted in “Design for Reuse,” used reclaimed cypress exterior cladding as a visual echo of wood-clad synagogues of the Eastern European shtetl period as well as a gesture toward the Jewish principle of tikkun olam, which encourages believers to “repair the world.” Both of these projects, along with several others highlighted in the report, were recipients of the AIA Committee on the Environment’s (COTE) Top Ten award.
The “Design for Reuse” project was funded by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) and supported by volunteers working alongside Public Architecture staff. It is available as a free download at designforreuse.org.
Copyright 2010 by BuildingGreen, LLC
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