Material Reuse Examples/Case Studies

Hi Beth, We completed a remodel for Hines recently – it’s small but we brought embodied carbon to the table on every decision, and ended up with significant savings compared to the typical ‘rip it out and start afresh’ mentality that many of our clients begin with. https://lmnarchitects.com/project/hines-seattle-headquarters https://www.e-architect.com/seattle/hines-seattle-headquarters-building There’s a lot of detail left out of the articles…we hope to write up something in much more detail soon. Essentially we surveyed the space to find existing salvageable material, created a spreadsheet (all good things involved a spreadsheet) to track every existing material, quantities, and it’s continuation or end of life. In order to reduce emissions, we designed around existing colors and materials so as much as possible could be salvaged in place. We bagged and donated the acoustic insulation that was removed to Habitat, and found new lives for other items as well. In one case we found a new home for the glass on site but elsewhere in the remodel. We also discussed new v existing furniture and monitored energy use on site during the remodel. You can also check out our Path To Zero Carbon series article 09- Circular Economy + Product Reuse. In it we are advocating (toward the end) to include existing materials in Life Cycle Analysis as we did on the Hines HQ project. I know, why aren’t existing materials always included in LCA? We go a bit farther in the soon-to-be-published 10- Existing Building Reuse post. The intro from post 10 contains this paragraph: “One quarter of the AIA COTE Top 10 winners from 2018-2022 involved major renovations, finding a new life for existing buildings. This includes Lick-Wilmerding High School, ASU Hayden Library, Market One, Ford Foundation Center, Keller Center

Earlier this year, we invited Felix Heisel, Assistant Professor and Director of the Circular Construction Lab at Cornell, present at our office (remotely). They have good examples on their website. One he presented on, The Catherine Commons Deconstruction Project, employed union labor (deconstruction) alongside several other identical labor/buildings (demolished). The effort harvested materials for reuse and studied labor costs. https://labs.aap.cornell.edu/ccl/research Related, a fun photo of reused lumber from our current office remodel, and a nice article written by SDL member, Kate Sector: https://www.lakeflato.com/content/lf-san-antonio-office-goes-zero-carbon-big-sun-solar  

Kjell, I love hearing these stories about salvage and harvesting usable materials from renovations for use elsewhere. We are embarking on this with one of our clients but our sticking point is $ and labor to do the actual removal of the materials. The client has the will, but no $ to contribute to the removal of material, the contractor has gotten bids from demolition crews for removal and they have all said their pricing doesn’t change – whether the space is empty or full of furniture, demolition costs will be the same. Of course that is a whole other issue we are digging into w/ the City of Boston but in the meantime we have two months to get all the reusable items out of this building. IRN came in and created a spreadsheet of inventory which was really helpful, and their model is for a cost, they will remove everything and deliver it to charities and other organizations. This is great, however the client has no $ to pay them. We have a couple of non-profits who will take some of the items left in the building, but they don’t have labor to help pull the material out, they only provide the truck and driver. So we (and I mean me!) are at the point of finding volunteers to help do this. I am curious how you did this. When you say we removed and bagged insulation, who was actually doing the work? Did Sellen provide labor? How much did you do as the architect/designers, and was it part of your fee? Kristen Kristen Fritsch AIA LEED AP BD+C WELL AP Senior Associate Sustainability Coordinator ELKUS MANFREDI ARCHITECTS [tel] 617.695.7954 [email] kfritsch@elkus-manfredi.com From:

Yes, Sellen provided the labor for the bagging. The project was small, and my guess it was very little cost. We didn’t get to see the costs as the client kept those internal. We had a compelling mission on the project, and everyone bought in to it. Since this was a small project for a large client, it’s likely that everyone was willing to go the extra mile, so it may not be directly replicable. But there was also the reduced cost since we maintained much of what was in the space, selecting new materials to match or refinishing so it looked fresh and new and cohesive. For another project, we advertised (like on buy nothing) that people could come and take certain things. All we had to do was staff an open house. Some larger companies have self-salvage warehouses where they see benefit in keeping furniture and other items so they can reuse the furniture for their smaller projects. I am curious if there is precedent for who gets the money when something is salvaged and if that is a way to pay for salvage. If it’s the salvager, then in some spaces they may be able to reduce the demo cost. That’s unfortunate that you pay the demo company the same no matter what they do. I heard about a 360 degree camera shot of each space in a demo so salvagers could actually see what is in their and perhaps realize a salvage benefit without the cost of visiting the space. Not sure if that would work. We are also talking to Rheaply about their services. -Kjell From: K

Thanks Kjell! We have talked about an open house, which might still be a possibility – the client is open to that, just a little bit of tricky logistics. For the open house did you have to do any disclaimers or waivers? I think our local Buy Nothing group is really strong and what we have inside the building will draw a lot of interest. We did discuss that if we did an open house we would have a way for people to make a donation (whatever amt) to the client, which is a small university. As for the other organizations they would provide donation receipts to the University. The contractor is also on board and provided a 360 plan which is super helpful, and we have had several walk-thrus with all vendors/demo contractors. This is part of a pilot project we are working on with the City of Boston and two of us are on the SDL Reuse group, and our local Boston CLF Reuse group, so we are tapping into all resources, but have hit this “labor” wall. We are also hoping to use Barbra Batshalom’s new resource – she is helping us post some of the items on Building Ease. We are definitely documenting the process and hurdles as we go as we plan a case study as well. It helps to hear about your experience to keep me energized and moving forward! Thanks and Happy New Year! Kristen Kristen Fritsch AIA LEED AP BD+C WELL AP Senior Associate Sustainability Coordinator ELKUS MANFREDI ARCHITECTS [tel] 617.695.7954 [email] kfritsch@elkus-manfredi.com From: Kje

Yes, we did have a paper waiver, but I don’t remember what it said. Best of luck, and I look forward to hearing how it goes! F

Reviving this thread from quite a long time ago because the need for reuse case studies keeps coming up in conversation, especially case studies that speak more to the process and how reuse / salvage actually happened. In the spirit of the now dormant "material flows and social impact" working group (which yielded what ended up being the All For Reuse Ecosystem Map)... I've been thinking we could create a similar resource to crowdsource actual projects.  I've started a rough google doc that just starts to list what parameters should be gathered for example projects that would be most useful. I'd love to get this network's feedback or resurrect the brain trust / working group to workshop this!  https://docs.google.com/document/d/1DIH8P1VgeoJ0bE3QBAWdvWGqjZga6tugWylvd5x7viM/edit?tab=t.0  (I'll post in the working group as well, let me know if you're interested in collaborating)