
On the island that operates entirely on renewable energy, having achieved its aim of being completely self-sufficient in green energy by 2020, there is a building that is being designed for deconstruction.
Design studio Woods Bagot and engineering and sustainability consultant Arup are factoring in a building’s end-of-life for their partnership on the University of Tasmania’s Forestry Building (rendering pictured above).
“There’s an expansive sustainability story that we are feeding into the many layers of this project,” Woods Bagot Associate Phoebe Settle said.
“For the Forestry Building we are looking ahead 50-100 years and thinking about how the choices we make now are going to play out then.
“It’s not about designing a building capable of outliving its own death, enduring beyond reason, but a building that when it is time to turn to the new, can be deconstructed without additional harm.”
Prue Edmunds, Arup and Woods Bagot’s point of contact for the Forestry Building project, outlines an “extension” of the conventional schedule for building sustainability evaluation.
“You can typically assume a building’s life is 60 years, and that a lot of the architectural materials will need replacement over that lifetime. Every 10 years you’re replacing carpet or every 20 years you might have to replace some of the wall linings from damage,” he said.
“For this project we are looking beyond replacement to dis-assemblage and deconstruction. Every element is being input into the life cycle assessment to measure both the upfront and embodied carbon, factoring in its impact on the journey to the Hobart site but also at the end of its life on its journey away from the campus.”
In the evaluation typology, this is referred to as Module D, and it is described as the advantages of the building that extend beyond the project’s boundaries, including the benefits from the reuse or recovery of materials at the end of their life.
The University of Tasmania has established a green bond requiring the project to reach a least 20 per cent carbon reduction compared to a comparable campus build.
“We’re trying to stretch that goal to 30 per cent,” Bruno Mendes, Principal at Woods Bagot, said.
“Sustainability is at the heart of our design response. It is the parameter that dictates every decision we are making – from the wider architectural design through to product specifications. Everything has been detailed from the dual perspective of construction and deconstruction.
“A key prompt for the design team was the concept of de-materialisation: asking the question of whether a material needed to be used in the first place. If it was needed, then this opened a subsequent set of questions about what we were specifying.
“One such question was, at the end of a product’s life or the end of its life on this campus, how is it then taken apart and fed into different recycling streams?”
There is a considerable reduction in the usage of adhesives and applied finishes throughout the project. At the conclusion of the building’s life, parts can be reassembled in different locations or recycled in their specialised material stream.
Woods Bagot has also selected items and manufacturers that have take-back programmes, recycling, or recovery initiatives.
After being approved by the City of Hobart in May 2022, work on the repair and refurbishment of the Forestry building has begun.