Barbra BatShalom
Username
Barbra Batshalom
Proposer First Name
Barbra
Proposer Email
bb@sustainable-performance.org
Proposer Last Name
BatShalom
Proposer Company/Organization
Sustainable Performance Institute (SPI)
Proposer Phone
(760) 650-2227
Boston 2022 Areas of Focus
Proposer Job Title
Executive Director
Proposed Session Description
Building deconstruction, or disassembly, is a critical strategy for carbon reduction, minimizing waste and contributing to a circular economy, yet remains a serious challenge for many reasons. Though many organizations, design & construction firms, and manufacturers have begun to explore this issue and work together to find solutions, market transformation will take time - especially if groups are working in isolation. Design firms have not taken the time to update (or create) standard deconstruction details for typical assemblies, so the resulting public ‘library’ will help them overcome that barrier. The AIA’s practice guide, ‘Buildings That Last: Design for Adaptability, Deconstruction, and Reuse’ makes a compelling case for the various benefits of this approach, but stops short at the development of standards and best practices to accelerate this change. This workshop builds on an initial public hackathon and is an opportunity to pool collective knowledge and best practices for the benefit of the industry, bringing together experienced professionals with technical expertise to generate a resource library of recommended standards for three focus areas: Exterior Facades, Structure + Parking Garages, and Interior Partitions. These standards will be made available to industry professionals, allowing them to incorporate decon details on their projects immediately.
Diversity and Inclusiveness
The session does not directly address DEI - the only thread is healthy materials in assemblies as the toxic materials disproportionately impact communities of color.
Learning Objectives
Inspire: Energize architects and design professionals toward positive action, specifically in the context of creating a better reality through the built environment.
Inform: Provide relevant, memorable, understandable, and transferrable information.
Improve: Offer strategies and tools that can be immediately applied to everyday practice and professional development.
Involve: Create opportunities for those who share common goals to connect with, learn from, amplify, and build upon each other’s voices, work, and networks.
Has this session been presented before?
Yes
When and Where?
We held the first Hackathon virtually as part of volunteer efforts with BSA, Carbon Leadership Forum and some other groups. It was clear that we barely scratched the surface and more were needed!
Additional Comments
This is a great community focused activity - and even one session at the conference won't complete everything that's needed so an added benefit is raising awareness of this so people can continue to contribute to the public wiki afterwards.
Session Format
Collaborative problem-solving session
Session Format Details
After a little intro and 'level-setting' with instructions, groups are broken out into focus areas (interior partition in an office with specific STC rating, etc or exterior rainscreen facade) and organizers will pop in and out of the groups to offer assistance. We can have a volunteer of ours in each session as well to keep it on track! So it's 90% interactive. The first one we did was 3 hours long and felt like it was too short - If there is an option to do even 120 min, that would be better than 90, but we can prepare it for 90 min and even provide info ahead of time to partricipants if they would access it (and can include the link to the public Miro board in the description if you think that would help).
Recommended Length
90-minute session
Strongest Content Connection - Boston 2022
Comments about your speaker roster
If my other proposed session gets accepted, and speakers can't do two sessions, another of our staff (Eva Rosenbloom) can do this with Laurel - all 3 of us did the last one!
Anything else you'd like to tell us about your session proposal?
It will be SO MUCH FUN!!!!
Reviewer 1
Gunn, Geoff
Proposal #
156
Committee Decision
Rejected
Presenters
Full Description
Millions of tons of C&D waste are generated unnecessarily each year. High turnover within retail, TI (shorter tenant leases of 3-5 years), hospitality, etc increases the volume and scenarios like multi-family developers, who build out all the units with kitchens and bathrooms, only to rip them out immediately for new owners to ‘customize’ – results in ridiculous and painful tons of ‘waste’. Our ecosystem can make a difference, even without policy (which is also important to pursue!). If architects designed and specified for deconstruction and worked with contractors and other early on to implement correctly – we could make a huge dent. Additionally, professionals come up with proposals for manufacturers (“if this product could use fasteners instead of adhesives, we could use it in design for deconstruction”) and we provide that feedback directly to manufacturers. Sadly, almost NO firms have taken the prerogative and done this on their own (and given how firms are run, its unlikely to ever happen) so we launched the first Hackathon to create a public library to make that step easier and accelerate the transformation. If we can get just the NESEA participants to get involved, generate and then USE these standard details, we will make a difference (with healthy materials as well as carbon!).