Deconstruction
Comes of Age
by Kathleen O’Brien
As available landfill space continues to
shrink and the cost of disposing of construction
debris heads skyward, increasing
numbers of builders are looking to a process
known as deconstruction for a partial answer
to their waste-management needs. While
there’s no single, universally recognized definition
of the term, the California Integrated
Waste Management Board defines deconstruction
as “the reverse of construction ... a
process to carefully dismantle or remove
usable materials from structures, as an alternative
to demolition. It maximizes the
recovery of valuable building materials ...
and minimizes ... waste.”
In one sense, deconstruction is simply a
new name for something that often happens
informally anyway, as when a neighbor
decides he’d like the