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Design for Deconstruction: Breaking New Ground in Education and Architecture
This fall, Chartwell School 
—known
for its state-of-the-art education for children with learning
disabilities—will open its new high-performance green
campus featuring the latest in green building technologies.
The new campus, built on the site of the former Fort Ord military base, is designed for deconstruction, which means that the building can be efficiently renovated to meet future needs with minimal waste. When the school reaches the end of its useful lifespan, it can be systematically dismantled to recover the building materials instead of being demolished. Designing for deconstruction can reduce the volume of future construction and demolition (C&D) debris and conserve resources by salvaging reusable materials. Some of Chartwell’s deconstruction features include modular framing, nail-free paneling, windows that can be replaced without damaging adjacent finishes, and centralized accessible wiring and utilities.
The new campus will be partially constructed of recycled and salvaged materials. The concrete will replace much of the cement with granulated blast furnace slag, an industrial byproduct of the steel industry. The exterior siding includes redwood salvaged from large wine tanks and Douglas fir salvaged from deconstructed military barracks at Ford Ord. Other green aspects include zero-net energy use and an expected 60 to 70 percent decrease in water use typically required for a traditional campus of a comparable size.
The lessons learned during the construction of the new campus will be instrumental in developing the Design for Deconstruction Handbook. EPA’s Region 9 office provided Chartwell with a grant to develop, pilot, and document design for deconstruction features to help other schools and businesses design for deconstruction. “Designing buildings and products to conserve resources by making reuse and recycling easy is the future of waste management. This project is a great example of waste reduction under EPA’s Resource Conservation Challenge,” said Jeff Scott, Region 9’s Waste Management Division Director.
The building of the new Chartwell campus exemplifies the type of activity encouraged by our own Resource Conservation Challenge within the national priority area of Reusing and Recycling Industrial Materials and Municipal Solid Waste Recycling.
For More Information:
- Chartwell School
- EPA's Green Building Web site
- Coal Combustion Products Partnership (C2P2) - A public/private cooperative effort to help promote the beneficial use of Coal Combustion Products (CCPs) and the environmental benefits that result from their use.
- Building Materials
Reuse Association
- A nonprofit educational organization facilitating building
deconstruction and the reuse/recycling of recovered building
materials.
- Deconstruction
Institute
- A Web site providing educational materials, tools and
techniques, networking, case studies, articles, facts about
the environmental impacts of deconstruction.
- Resource Conservation Challenge National Priority Areas: