Building for a circular future

What if, when it's time to tear a building down, the building has been designed by the architect to be easy to take apart so that the materials can be reused in another project? How should we design such buildings and what would they look like?

These are the questions Ryerson architectural science professor Mark Gorgolewski contemplates in research efforts like his recent book, Resource Salvation: The Architecture of Reuse. Professor Gorgolewski examines circular economy ideas applied to building materials, including the functionality and aesthetic possibilities of material reuse, as well as the environmental benefits of using closed-loop concepts when designing buildings and their components.

Professor Gorgolewski believes that developing a circular economy with built infrastructure requires a new approach to building design, one that also considers the reuse of materials when the building's lifespan is complete.

While some material reuse already occurs, he says that new systems should be developed to improve efficiency and encourage widespread use of the practice. For example, steel beams are often extracted from a demolished building, melted down and then remade. Professor Gorgolewski would like to see the beams reused directly, skipping the melting and remaking process and saving energy to decrease environmental impact.

The research looks at material scarcity, and he suggests that an important reason why a more circular approach to architecture is necessary is that, in the case of some materials, much of the easily accessible stock has already been mined. This means further extraction will require more energy and have more of an environmental impact. The book uses case studies to illustrate these concepts and more.

"The way we design buildings in the first place and the way we connect components together needs to be changed so we can more easily take them apart," professor Gorgolewski said.

Professor Gorgolewski continues his research into circular economy and building with research topics such as using discarded materials, like election signs, and turning that waste into building materials, like insulation or cladding, that could be purchased for reuse.

It is probable that 100 per cent circularity will not be achievable or desirable for built infrastructure because of the quality of some older materials, but professor Gorgolewski says that many building materials — like bricks, timber or steel — can have much longer life-spans than the building they are used to initially construct.

"I'm interested in the efficiency of use of materials at the scale of an individual building and the scale of the industry, and I think we're very wasteful in the way that we use the materials," said professor Gorgolewski.

The book, Resource Salvation: The Architecture of Reuse, was published by Wiley-Blackwell in 2018.