Disassembly for Sustainability

Architects think about CO2 emissions in two ways: operational carbon and embodied carbon. When a building is running, emissions come from things that humans switch on: the heater, the air conditioner, the stove, the TV, the computer, the elevator. Life lived or business conducted in a building creates “operational carbon” emissions. Architects measure the emissions that come from the pre-operational and post-operational life of a building as embodied carbon. Pre-operational carbon emissions come from materials extraction, their transportation to the manufacturing site, manufacturing, site preparation and actual construction. Post-operational emissions come from building demolition and the removal and disposal of demolished material.

Students, Kaylen Rasua and James Dam, developed a structural system that can accommodate an educational space and made a half-scale model of one bay of this system. The structural system can get disassembled to be reused in building the structure of a pavilion. The system shown in the images is developed in Course 608: Design for Disassembly Studio, offered by Anahita Khodadadi and Michael Hoover.

She is an Assistant Professor in the School of Architecture and Planning at the University at Buffalo and her work aims to reduce embodied carbon. She collaborates with designers and challenges her graduate students to design with DfD in mind. Her challenge is to get designers to think about the termination of a building at the same point they think about its creation.

One way Khodadadi gets designers to consider disassembly is through the joinery systems in their buildings. Connecting material through adhesives or welding makes it difficult to take materials apart without breaking them. Khodadadi encourages the use of bolts, screws, and interlocking joinery systems designed with disassembly in mind. In her graduate-level studio course, Khodadadi encourages her students to design structural shell systems that can be disassembled effectively. This focus on the small concept of joinery can extend the life of building material, reducing the need for the emissions-heavy process of material extraction, production, and disposal, thus reducing the CO2 output of not just one building but of the whole construction system.

Anahita Khodadadi

Design for Disassembly (DfD) is an architectural concept that aims to extend the life of building materials by ensuring those materials can be repurposed into other building projects. Architects who aim to build responsibly, work to understand the complete carbon footprint of their designs. This is where Anahita Khodadadi comes in. Khodadadi works to channel the creative energy of design, not just into a building’s initial conception but into a building’s eventual demise.