Matan Mayer
IE University
Matan Mayer is an Assistant Professor of Architecture at IE University School of Architecture and Design in Madrid and Segovia, Spain, where he teaches construction technology and design courses. He holds a doctoral and masters research degrees from Harvard Graduate School of Design, as well as a BArch degree from Tel Aviv University. Matan’s research work focuses on achieving life cycle innovation in the built environment through developments in manufacturing technology, assembly techniques, and digital design platforms. Prior to his current position, Matan has taught research seminars at Harvard GSD and at Universidad Torcuato Di Tella. He has completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the Harvard Center for Green Buildings and Cities, a residency at the Harvard Innovation Lab Venture Incubation Program, as well as research fellowships at the Institute for Lightweight Structures and Conceptual Design at the University of Stuttgart, and the Composite Construction Laboratory at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology.
Deconstruction is often described in literature as a systematic and organized alternative to demolition, one that is predominantly motivated by an effort to maximize landfill diversion rates through increased reuse and recycling [1]. In such definitions, these sources seem to perceive demolition and deconstruction as directly comparable practices, mainly due to the fact that both are short-term interventions guided by the intention of clearing a building site for new construction. Consequently, a similar set of metrics is typically used to measure success in both demolition and deconstruction activities: Cost, rate of building mass removal, and a total sum of reuse, recycling, and disposal quantities. In practice, however, deconstruction substantially differs from demolition in many aspects, most notably in its duration and the type of onsite operations it requires. While full demolition and site clearing of an average 1600 square foot single story residential building, for example, would normally take only 3 days, full deconstruction of the same asset would take an average 2.4 weeks [2]. This considerable difference can be attributed to the manual and more meticulous nature of deconstruction as opposed to the mostly mechanized nature of demolition. It would, therefore, be insufficient to analyze deconstruction based only on its final outcomes. Deconstruction should be viewed and measured as an extended process, characterized by complexities which are more analogous to construction rather than demolition. A process-based approach to deconstruction waste stream analysis would not only allow accurate depiction of the progress of diversion rates throughout the course of onsite operations, but would also assist in detecting problematic steps and techniques in a manner beyond the capabilities of a final diversion rate account. To cope with these challenges, this presentation proposes an analysis strategy which focuses on dynamic documentation of diversion rates throughout the deconstruction process, assessing recovered quantities through the lens of influencing factors such as assembly and material categories, tools used, and connection types. The presentation describes the methodological foundations of the strategy, followed by a demonstration of the method on a case study featuring a recently deconstructed research facility in Athens, Georgia (USA). The presentation concludes with an examination of the results and proposes future research directions.
[1] Smith, Eddy, William E. Boone, and Mamar Shami. "Sustainable Approaches to Landfill Diversion: The Global Sustainability of Deconstruction." In Proc. Int. Conf: Sustainable construction materials and technologies, vol. 1. 2007.
[2] Dantata, Nasiru, Ali Touran, and James Wang. "An analysis of cost and duration for deconstruction and demolition of residential buildings in Massachusetts." Resources, conservation and recycling 44, no. 1 (2005): 1-15.
• Socio-economic metabolism and material flow analysis , • Sustainability and resilience metrics , • Infrastructure systems, the built environment, and smart and connected infrastructure
