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| writing:deconstruction [2026/05/29 00:58] – JacobCoffinWrites | writing:deconstruction [2026/05/31 22:52] (current) – JacobCoffinWrites |
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| * The building may be part of car infrastructure which can't be easily repurposed, such as a parking garage. In this case, the building's footprint may be far more useful than its current structure. | * The building may be part of car infrastructure which can't be easily repurposed, such as a parking garage. In this case, the building's footprint may be far more useful than its current structure. |
| * The building may be structurally unsound and unsuitable enough for repurposing that it's hard to justify investing resources into repairs. Some buildings are just built incredibly cheaply and may not be designed to last more than a decade without a serious overhaul. [[https://mcmansionhell.com/|McMansions]] and other 'builder grade' new houses are infamous for their cheap construction, but strip malls and other commercial buildings can be similarly unsustainable. | * The building may be structurally unsound and unsuitable enough for repurposing that it's hard to justify investing resources into repairs. Some buildings are just built incredibly cheaply and may not be designed to last more than a decade without a serious overhaul. [[https://mcmansionhell.com/|McMansions]] and other 'builder grade' new houses are infamous for their cheap construction, but strip malls and other commercial buildings can be similarly unsustainable. |
| * The location may be poor. Perhaps the building has been built on what used to be a train line which society is looking to return to use. Perhaps it's on a flood plain, a landslide-prone cliff, or [[https://www.theverge.com/features/861950/fire-resilient-home-neighborhood|recurrent wildfire area]] where it's likely to be destroyed anyways. Or perhaps society is just taking on a new shape - in present day, car-reliant exurban/rural areas, many residential buildings have been built an impractical distance from anything else. If cars become less practical and people rely more on trains and live in denser villages, these outlying buildings may eventually be abandoned. | * The location may be poor. Perhaps the building has been built on what used to be a train line which society is looking to return to use. Perhaps it's on a flood plain, a landslide-prone cliff, or [[https://www.theverge.com/features/861950/fire-resilient-home-neighborhood|recurrent wildfire area]] where it's likely to be destroyed anyways. Or [[exurbs_in_the_solarpunk_transition|perhaps society is just taking on a new shape]] - in present day, car-reliant exurban/rural areas, many residential buildings have been built an impractical distance from anything else. If cars become less practical and people rely more on trains and live in denser villages, these outlying buildings may eventually be abandoned. |
| * The longer they’re left abandoned, the more they’ll degrade. The structures will become unsafe, the materials will rot or break, or become inaccessible, and in some cases, they’ll pose environmental risks as fuel tanks rust out, chemicals escape their storage, or damaged structures catch fire (even with the powerlines cut upstream, abandoned solar panels or poorly-isolated generators backfeeding into the grid might allow for damage to an abandoned house to cause a fire). This is especially true with modern buildings, particularly the kind of cheap new houses and McMansions with their heavy reliance on petro-products like “structural” foam columns and facades, which will go up like a struck match. | * The longer they’re left abandoned, the more they’ll degrade. The structures will become unsafe, the materials will rot or break, or become inaccessible, and in some cases, they’ll pose environmental risks as fuel tanks rust out, chemicals escape their storage, or damaged structures catch fire (even with the powerlines cut upstream, abandoned solar panels or poorly-isolated generators backfeeding into the grid might allow for damage to an abandoned house to cause a fire). This is especially true with modern buildings, particularly the kind of cheap new houses and McMansions with their heavy reliance on petro-products like “structural” foam columns and facades, which will go up like a struck match. |
| * Weather, encroaching water, mold, ice, and animals can all cause compounding damage to empty buildings surprisingly fast. | * Weather, encroaching water, mold, ice, and animals can all cause compounding damage to empty buildings surprisingly fast. |
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| There’s tons of embodied carbon stored in those structures. In their carefully-refined materials, their transportation, and in the act of construction. Some of those materials might be very difficult to produce for a society that carefully watches its externalities and seeks to do as little harm as possible. There are several other advantages: deconstruction sites/sources of salvaged material are almost guaranteed to be much closer to the places they'll be reused, and these materials are generally retrieved in a much more ready-to-use state. For example, dimensional lumber pulled from a stick-frame house might have some extra nails stuck in it, but it's already cut to size and will be easier to work down than a green tree, which must be cut down, transported, milled to rough dimensions, dried, possibly treated with preservatives, milled to final dimensions, and transported again. Depending on the age of the deconstructed building the wood may even be higher quality. | There’s tons of embodied carbon stored in those structures. In their carefully-refined materials, their transportation, and in the act of construction. Some of those materials might be very difficult to produce for a society that carefully watches its externalities and seeks to do as little harm as possible. Even renewable materials can generally be retrieved in a much more ready-to-use state. For example, dimensional lumber pulled from a stick-frame house might have some extra nails stuck in it, but it's already cut to size and will be easier to work down than a green tree, which must be cut down, transported, milled to rough dimensions, dried, possibly treated with preservatives, milled to final dimensions, and transported again. Depending on the age of the deconstructed building the older wood [[https://disastermansion.com/2023/04/25/old-growth-lumber/|may even be higher quality]]. Furthermore, compared to mines or forests, deconstruction sites/sources of salvaged material are almost guaranteed to be much closer to the places where they'll be reused, as the best source for buildings is already-developed areas. |
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| By carefully disassembling these structures and providing the recovered materials to their communities, solarpunk societies can build for a much lower overall cost (both environmentally and in resources harvested from the world) while removing potential toxin or fire threats. And by filling in the buildings' cellarholes and replanting, they can rewild once-developed land, build better habitats, and restore their local ecosystems. | By carefully disassembling these structures and providing the recovered materials to their communities, solarpunk societies can build for a much lower overall cost (both environmentally and in economically), reduce the amount of construction waste it needs to store forever, and remove the threats (such as fire, chemical leaks, or structural collapse) posed by abandoned or otherwise unsafe buildings. And by filling in the buildings' cellarholes and replanting, they can rewild once-developed land, build better habitats, and restore large, contiguous ecosystems. |
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| === The Process === | === The Process === |
| Ideally, a deconstructed structure should provide every building material used in its construction, but realistically there are going to be limitations. Shingles (asphalt roofing shingles or wooden siding shingles) are going to be basically impossible to remove intact. Some forms of insulation (especially old stuff like newspaper, sawdust, or asbestos) won't be worth reusing and may even necessitate hazardous materials disposal. Horsehair plaster can be extremely fragile and probably wouldn't be worth reusing even if it survived removal, transportation and storage. Even modern sheetrock will be a pain to salvage. Some wood will be rotten or infested with ants, termites, or other insects. Wiring and plumbing will take a lot of inspection and some careful documentation of original use before it's considered safe to reuse, and many folks will be (not unreasonably,) reluctant to use reuse it even then. Even brick and concrete can be damaged by the elements. | Ideally, a deconstructed structure should provide every building material used in its construction, but realistically there are going to be limitations. Shingles (asphalt roofing shingles or wooden siding shingles) are going to be basically impossible to remove intact. Some forms of insulation (especially old stuff like newspaper, sawdust, or asbestos) won't be worth reusing and may even necessitate hazardous materials disposal. Horsehair plaster can be extremely fragile and probably wouldn't be worth reusing even if it survived removal, transportation and storage. Even modern sheetrock will be a pain to salvage. Some wood will be rotten or infested with ants, termites, or other insects. Wiring and plumbing will take a lot of inspection and some careful documentation of original use before it's considered safe to reuse, and many folks will be (not unreasonably,) reluctant to use reuse it even then. Even brick and concrete can be damaged by the elements. |
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| That said, a tremendous amount of construction supplies, from doors and windows, to lumber and plywood can be obtained, saving both the materials and avoiding transportation and wasted space in a landfill. To get an idea of the sheer scope of materials, hardware, and //stuff// which might be salvaged, here's a few real life businesses which wholesale recovered materials: | That said, a tremendous amount of construction supplies, from fixtures, doors and windows, to lumber and plywood can be obtained, saving both the materials and avoiding transportation and wasted space in a landfill. To get an idea of the sheer scope of materials, hardware, and //stuff// which might be salvaged, here's a few real life businesses which wholesale recovered construction supplies: |
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| * https://junkyardsnearme.net/building-material-salvage-yards-near-me/ - this one has some good photos of salvage yards | * https://junkyardsnearme.net/building-material-salvage-yards-near-me/ - this one has some good photos of salvage yards |
