Deconstruction + Reuse = NØ Waste

Abstract

How much does it cost to rehabilitate and extend, with optimal conditions of habitability, a nonused building versus starting a new one from scratch? One of the main challenges we are facing nowadays in order to fight against climate change is the efficient use of resources in all areas of society. From the scopes of architecture and building sciences, the efficiency in the management of resources will be key for improving our capacity of adaptation towards the requirements of sustainable development and climate change. This issue is directly linked to the topic of rehabilitation versus building from scratch (starting with a new floor plan). The research developed for the thesis "Life cycles of materials. Building from scratch versus rehabilitation and extension of the traditional dwelling from Extremadura" presents values that go far beyond the estimations made for the initial hypothesis; the impacts on the quality of the natural environment of a renewed-extended existing dwelling is 63,42% lower than the impacts generated by building a new one. Specifically in economical terms, the costs of a renewal/extension of an existing dwelling are 36,90% lower than the costs of a new building. Having these data values, a quite important question is still in the air: Which will be the steps required to be able to acknowledge society about this issue? We have completed an empirical demonstration in the case study of the dwelling in C/ Colón 36, in Castuera (Spain), where we present the process to obtain satisfactory results using the following methodology: DECONSTRUCTION + REUSE = NØWASTE