Design-for-Disassembly Principles for Apartment Blocks – Experimental Design in a Finnish Housing Project

Researchers in the building sector are discussing design-for-disassembly as a concept to reduce the environmental impact of the construction sector in the long term. The term design-for-disassembly refers to practices used in new construction to increase the likelihood of the reuse of building components in the end-of-life phase. Academia and practice have suggested guidelines or principles for design-for-disassembly, while there is little knowledge of their practical implications. Based on the guidelines in the literature, this study focuses on developing tangible architectural and structural planning solutions and assessing their potential to improve the reuse potential of a building. The study uses the research-by-design approach in a case study when modifying an existing design of a Finnish apartment building in collaboration with the client. The indicators of reuse potential tested and developed in this study are reuse rate, simplicity, and standardization. The result shows that avoiding architectural and structural planning solutions that require monolithic structures, designing divergent functions as independent systems, and centralizing shafts for building services are effective ways to create conditions for maximizing reuse, simplicity, and standardization in load-bearing structures. These practices caused no significant limitations to architectural and structural planning. Further research is needed to develop comprehensive and practical DfD performance metrics, apply them in different contexts, test and validate reversible structural joints, implement design-for-disassembly principles in exterior walls, and analyze the economic feasibility of the concept.