Design by Availability: Harvesting Materials via Tech and Reuse Ecosystems

ARGELIA BARCENA: Welcome to my session on Design by Availability, Harvesting Materials via Technology and Reuse Ecosystems. My name is Argelia Barcena. I'm the Regional Design Technology Manager at Gensler for our Northwest region. I have an architecture degree and more than 20 years of experience in the industry. I also teach part time at several colleges and universities here in San Francisco, California. I am a repeat speaker here at AU. And recently I participated as an exam writer for Autodesk Revit Certified Professional Exam.

My career started off in the typical path of designing buildings and spaces. And halfway through it, it pivoted towards design technology where I am right now. And in addition, I also am one of the directors for the AIA, American Institute of Architects, San Francisco chapter board of directors. And I am original lead for the global organization of Women in BIM.

I want to start this session with a reminder of our learning objectives. This case study session is largely focused on workflow. Therefore, objective number three will be the most extensively covered followed by objectives number one and four with a brief overview of topics that will cover objective number two.

Did you know that California became the first state to adopt building code measures to reduce embodied carbon? California Building Standards Commission voted unanimously for these building code changes to eliminate embodied carbon emissions. And this applies for new construction, remodels, and adaptive reuse of commercial buildings that are over 100,000 square feet, and also to school projects that are over 50,000 square feet. These changes will go into effect on July 1st 2024 statewide in California. This is only one of the reasons why this session is important. The session will focus on the concept of design by availability as a strategy to reduce carbon emissions tracking environmental metrics for projects specifically around materials used to prepare them for reuse using technology tools to inform and also to visualize data.

Let's talk about the problem with current design and building practices. Construction activities are responsible for more than 30% of resource use worldwide and 23% of global greenhouse gas emissions, most of them coming from material production. Now, despite the great cost and ongoing demand for building products, the majority of remnant salvageable and surplus items are land filled or incinerated. How can we change our workflows so that there is visibility, metric reporting, and recirculating them by finding the next use of these materials as opposed to them going to landfill?

Workflow adjustment-- that is part of the solution. What if we could reuse the materials, the finishes, the furniture, the equipment on a new projects as a strategy to reduce carbon emissions? With this, of course, comes a change in workflow as I mentioned. In the commercial real estate market, tenant leases of 10 to 15 years are now being replaced by three year leases. And now the lessee is required to return the premises with all existing tenant improvements completely removed. Current commercial real estate economic models are set up to value the building investment but may not fully consider environmental factors such as carbon emissions associated with base building materials, anything that is fixed and brought into the building.

There is a need for a more comprehensive and sustainable approaches to assessing the value and impact of commercial real estate investments. Look at the images here represented of the type of work that we do at Gensler. We see reclaimed wood being used on ceilings, and walls, and desks. We see furniture, lighting fixtures, cabinetry, finish panels, glazing, doors, acoustical panels, sound attenuation panels. What does this mean to us and to the design team? It means a shift in workflow for project delivery.

Let's call it smart demolition. How can our plans become smarter, more intelligent? It will entail more time commitment and more quality commitment, higher level of development for modeling of existing conditions not only new construction but existing conditions. A client comes to you, wants to move into a new space, wants you to do a study of how can they reuse some of this material in their new space. That means we have to model the existing conditions to an [INAUDIBLE] level that is not generic modeling. It has to be 300, maybe 350.

So improve architecture modeling practices to show carbon reduction options as imperative. Could this be a new add-on service? Certainly, it can be, and it should be. Documentation of existing conditions via technology is key. Going from demolition to deconstruction-- what does that look like and measuring the impact via the revenue model and other technology tools to enhance the process. It is designing for disassembly, setting the stage for waste reduction.

Look at this image. It is filled with hidden messages. Big demo words on that wall. At the same time, we see packaging of existing furniture, wood, ceiling panels. What is happening here? Precisely designed by availability-- what is design? To reach ambitious building carbon reduction goals, we must design by availability. We need to rethink the commercial construction material, reuse supply chain, and the market by exploring ways in which design technology could automate the inventory process required to implement a successful harvesting of existing building components on any project.

In this particular case study for the projects that I will be presenting, we implemented certain Revit workflows for both the new and existing construction. For example, elements were modeled in the correct category. They must be in order to create accurate data. Materials that needed to be created were created and assigned accurately. Anything that was modeled was checked for accuracy in its units of measure.

Why is this important? It's important because when we measure embodied carbon emissions, sometimes it's volume other times it's mass or area. So we have to make sure that all of those are accurate.

We also saw the need to create a custom parameters for embodied carbon numbers. Now, how that looks on your project-- it could be a project parameter depending on the use that you're going to put into it, or it can be a shared parameter if you are going to share it with other projects. The way you name it-- just something that makes sense, right? In this case, you see the naming that I entered, and then you select if it's a type. For instance, parameter-- in our case, it was a type parameter because, say, we modeled ceilings of a certain type. Those carry in a specific number with them. Therefore, we want it to be a type parameter as opposed to instance.

And there are many other examples of how parameters can be created. So it can be one for baseline. It can be one for the number that you actually entered in your components. And with that, you can then create a calculated parameter to give you a percentage of how much better you did when compared to a baseline. So there are many possibilities here.

Setting and naming standards is essential. This is both for the elements that you are building, that you are modeling and also because you are going to be implementing filters. Which I will show you in a moment how the naming of these and the implementation is very important in this whole exercise. Lastly, you will need to embed all these practices into your standard Revit template.

This is an example of how applying rules for color coding into the project worked. We created a name for each of these elements. In this case this is floors. So we have tile. We have concrete and carpet et cetera. And these, of course, were with how you label them with your legend. We assigned colors to these. And we, of course, activated the visibility of these in our plans.

We did that also for finishes. So for example, window, glazing, whiteboard, window coverings, you name it, any panels that are attached to walls. Again, colors apply to them in both cut, view, and projection because some of these are going to be seen in cut view, others in projection, right? And, again, you assign the visibility parameter to them so that you can apply the filters. We also did this for ceilings.

Now, you see the power of Revit right here. The floor plan color-coded, the pie chart with the numbers, and a legend that tells you what these numbers are and where in your project these are located. And how, also, the area looks in comparison to the numbers that are emitted because you might think I have a big area of material so that must be the one that contributes the most of carbon emissions in my project. But you might be wrong. It might be a smaller area, but the material that you're using can carry a big number with it. Therefore, that might end up being bigger than the bigger area with another material.

So, in this case, this project that we worked on is a scope of four floors and the numbers that you see here cover the entire four floors. So we see that 56% of the carbon emissions are coming from carbon, right? So what does this tell us? This tells us that we could replace carpet with some other material to lower the carbon emissions.

And this is something you take into account in new construction, perhaps maybe not necessarily when you were going to use this for circularity and reuse the materials. But it also tells you that you can save this much. So if you're taking this carpet tiles, for example, from a project to a new project, you are reusing those. So you are avoiding the emissions that get generated from material production because you are reusing this, and you are avoiding this big number of 33,000, right? So that is a big impact. And to see it visually is very useful for both the design team and the client.

Here is another example. And this one shows finishes so whiteboards, interior glazing, back splash, window shades. And in this example we see that glazing is the one with the most carbon emissions.

And in the legend you will notice that some numbers are in bold. Those numbers that are in bold are the biggest contributors to carbon emissions on this project. Same for sales-- we have the top three. And, again, for the four floors and when you go to different floors, it really varies the type of ceiling that you're using. So what you see here is representative of all of that.

And it also goes to show that getting rid of ceiling tiles and leaving an exposed ceiling might be the better option, right? Don't cover the office space project in ceiling tiles. Leave some of it exposed. You're going to save numbers and also you are going to-- I mean, it looks-- the design looks nice when you leave some exposed ceiling in it. So you can achieve both a design intent and a carbon emission right there.

This specific project that I'm using here in this case study has a lifespan of 10 years. So these numbers are based on a 10-year lifespan. And the total area of this project was about 150,000 square feet. It didn't take into account any furniture. It took into account other things, such as the ones that I've mentioned.

Now we go into automation. Automation is another tool that we use in this exercise. And for that, Gensler has its own developed programming in-house called gFloorz. It's agile programming and space planning. It creates semi-automated and rule- based layouts. You can customize a dashboard with dynamic real time metrics. If you have standards for your client, you can bring it in to gFloorz. And it also exports data. And with the multi-floor data it breaks down everything across floor plates. It also creates design options for you.

It gives you the option of generating layouts based on a predefined family that you've created, right? And you enter clearances. You enter requirements in it. It also gives you deep data insights and alerts you if you are not meeting those requirements or if you are exceeding them. So in the design options, it gives you different iterations of what you can accomplish with the different design options. So there may be two ways of accomplishing something. And this is a great program to give you that.

And we use this in another project that I'm using for this case study, which is a low bono project our office did for temporary housing. We have some projects that are pro bono, others that are low bono. This is an example of one of them. And this specific project was targeting the homeless population in some of our cities in California. You see here that we have the dashboard for gFloorz, and we pick the repeating layouts tool, which tells me I have this specific module I want to repeat eight iterations of this, let's say.

And then it will prompt you to select how many rows you want. You want them all vertical. You want a mixture of vertical and horizontal. And it just lays them out for you saving you a lot of time. And, also, these are data rich, meaning it can calculate things for you, right? You don't have to enter them every single time. Having the layout produced for you multiple iterations, it gives you very, very rich data reporting.

Now, this project, like I mentioned, is temporary housing for people who are homeless because housing projects, as you might know, low income ones as well, take a couple of years to get approval to get built. This is a solution for a very important problem. The intention of this prefabricated parts because they are prefabricated is to reuse them. They have a lifespan of about 10 years. And they are demountable, meaning they have pre-drilled holes. They come-- you bring a forklift. You take them. You lift them to the next site. So these sites remain in place for three to five years, let's say.

They are temporary, provided by the city. So let's say in five years, they have to be vacated. These pots can be reused for other projects in other cities or within the same city but different sites. Super easy to move them around and because there are pots demountable, that means you're only counting for the transportation for carbon emissions. You don't have to reproduce anything. You don't have to buy any new material. These are all being reused.

Another example of how we implement our gFloorz is another dashboard view of where you pick the direction in which you want to array these layouts. We have in the first row, we have six of them with another group of four. Right.

Now, you can array them in four different rows, and it repeats them. It gives you the count of how many you have. In the lower right corner, you see the color-coded image that I showed in the previous slide as well, which shows that we have eight single-occupancy pods, with two that are a couple, which are double units, and one that is ADA.

You can color code these. And then it will transform those into layouts. So it brings in the bed, the desk, everything with it just with the touch of a button. And this has been very useful for us in doing this exercise.

Now we're going to get into the asset management of this case study. Tally is a plugin to Revit. In Tally, you can extract the data from your Revit model, select the categories included in your scope, hit apply, create a report. So this will save our report. And this is what it would look like.

You also see that in Tally, it can give you more detailed information about your elements. In this case, it's a carpet. You can see that it gives you numbers for adhesive or backing for the underlayment. So it goes really, really deep into all the details that a component might have that you might not think about.

Now, if needed, we also have other software that you can implement into your projects, EC3. It's not always needed but, sometimes you could use it to your benefit. So Tally also has a capability of exporting directly to EC3.

It is good to have a kit of parts, model maybe, to have linear feet of so and so. EC3 has the ability of giving you materials that already have EPDs assigned to them. When you don't have these numbers-- and let's say you have a piece of furniture that the manufacturer does not provide the EPD for it. Well, EC3 might have that information, or it might not right now for furniture. But let's say, for any door that you're looking for, you might be able to extract those numbers from here.

At the end when you do your report and you have your findings, so this is what we have, right? We have a selection of materials that we had picked for this project and the numbers of carbon emissions. Now, there is a recommended baseline. And for us at Gensler, we also have standards that are minimal, minimum ones that we must follow. And we have an ideal number. In ideal world, we could achieve this really low number.

Now, sometimes the client has their specific design needs. So you have to find an in between the baseline and the ideal, in which case you find materials that look similar but then the numbers are lower, right? In this case, let's just pick carpet for example. The baseline one has a total based on the total area of your project. In this case, an overall emission of 160,228.

Now, the idea would have been one that's 21,000, only 21,000 as compared to 160,000. But we found one that we used for the project which was 37,000, right? It's still a very low number compared to the baseline. So at the end, you put all these together, baseline, project specific, ideal, and you present the overall reduction from baseline would have been 76%. And we would have gone with the ideal.

And now we show what we did for the project specific. So our project specific numbers were 67% reduction from the baseline, which is an excellent number still. Very, very good-- it's closer to 76%. And all of this is the result of your reporting of how you model everything and then how you're going to implement it back into your project.

This goes back to the low bono project now where we have these pods refabricated. The intention of this recircularity of materials is that they come embedded with a QR code with all the information, all the data that you need to know if you want to reuse this for another project, right? So you scan the code. It gives you all this information, and then you can apply it and see, OK, if I use this in a new project, how much am I saving because if I were to order this new, these are the numbers that I would be using, right?

And I have, I don't know, 20 [INAUDIBLE] multiplied by the number of carbon emissions that each of these would generate. But I'm going to save this much because I'm going to reuse this. And, also, you might take into account the transportation. Is something coming from Dubai versus Portland, Oregon, which is closer. All of these things come into account.

Cities have partnered with reuse market places to provide these services. And it is something that we should put to use as well because we have access to these. Or we could very well create our own internal market places to host these materials for reuse.

[VIDEO PLAYBACK]

- In every town and city, various types of buildings support the needs of communities. They're used for living, working, learning, making, playing, and many other activities. But what's inside each of these spaces? If you look around the room, you'll see some common items, like floors and ceilings, doors, walls, windows, light, furniture, and fixtures. There are also less obvious components, like electrical, safety, or EV devices, mechanical equipment, framing, pipes, or conduit, and all the details that make our spaces work.

Every one of these items adds up in financial value, embodied carbon, physical mass. Yet each time a space is demolished or renovated, not even half of existing materials are regularly recycled. Direct re-use is even less common if it happens at all. In the US alone, over 2.5 billions square feet of commercial floor space are renovated per year, making the impact truly colossal.

Globally, the built-in environment uses over 50% of the 100 billion tons of raw material extracted each. And generates more than half of solid waste. Construction demolition waste are expected to surpass a billion tons annually by 2025. No one wants all this to go to waste, but in the way we work today, waste is standard practice. To build a restorative future, we must better work with what we have through deconstructing, sourcing reuse, and designing for disassembly, creating a circular economy that will reduce landfill waste, protect natural habitats, mitigate greenhouse gas emissions, and expand access to local resources and job opportunities.

How do we begin? Local reuse centers will be critical to this transition. A reuse center can help salvage materials or supply them on a project, ideally both. There are often small local organizations with a team of specialist partners, assessors to identify what's viable for reuse, deconstruction specialists to salvage materials from the project, haulers to move materials, capacity to store them, and a retail or wholesale operation through which they distribute products. And sometimes even more services or connections to additional partners, like appraisers to help value material donations, re fabricators or manufacturers, and workforce development or community training programs.

The good news, there are existing reuse centers ready to help. They work with owners, designers, and construction teams over the life of a project, from site evaluation through the end of construction. To make the circular economy real, we see a future where every project is evaluated for its reuse potential. Let's see how one team might work together to make it happen.

As the project owner selects their site, they recognize the value in existing materials. Rather than rushing to clear the space out, they seek opportunities to harvest what's already there, reducing fitout costs through re-use on site or distribution by donation and resale. The owner or project manager engages the reuse centers assessor to join the project team early. They survey the site to start developing an inventory of items that are feasible for salvage and identifying materials the reuse center considers quantity available, physical condition, logistics, and access for disassembly and transfer, overall project schedule, and the value and viability for resale.

Their itemized inventory complete with photos, details, and descriptions can be used for donation receipts, sustainability certifications, and a record of what is kept out of the landfill. Most importantly, it enables communication and product tracking throughout the project. The design team uses the initial inventory as they start to plan the space. It helps them determine what might be reused on site directly, modified to fit the new design, or reclaim to be redistributed elsewhere.

What about sourcing products that close the loop? The reuse centers retail team works with the designers to incorporate other reused or remanufactured items for the project. Digital platforms further increase visibility and assist exchanges with additional partners, [INAUDIBLE], their quality and condition, any modifications or refabrication to fit the needs of the project, applicable codes or certifications, and often the cultural value in preserving a piece of the past.

[END PLAYBACK]

ARGELIA BARCENA: Very fascinating, right? This is the whole life cycle of materials that we would like to achieve. And what is next? Some food for thought. How can we create better construction details to show carbon reduction options? Now, we get into the construction details. How can we apply that same color-coding and data-embedding capacity into our construction details? Is it worth look into? I'll leave you with that thought.

Also, with other tools to implement in this effort, now we have Autodesk Data Exchange connector that we can use for the same purposes of extracting data, creating graphics, and connecting all these other tools that we are using for this purpose.

The takeaways, a better workflow for sifting through the selection of available materials that are flagged for disposal. It will help our design teams find more opportunity for re-use. Connecting these outcomes with our core software genealogy tools and demonstrating how this information could be modeled, managed, and extracted is critical to establishing an improved process for designing with availability in mind. Thank you. Hope you enjoyed this session as much as I enjoyed putting it together.