Reading the existing: What discarded materials bring to the project

Buildings are being demolished sooner and sooner after their construction. Regrettably this trend shows no signs of being reversed anytime soon. Demolition activities are driven today by real estate developments fueled by investment logics and rapidly changing lifestyles, demographics, and new standards. To a large extent, building demolitions are mostly unrelated to loss of structural capacity or material degradation. When demolition is deemed unavoidable, reclaiming discarded building materials for new uses elsewhere lowers environmental damage while providing local economic alternatives to the global market, and the growth of a new social fabric. Reclaiming building materials for their reuse in new architectural projects calls for new ways of reading: I. Demolition sites as mines of good quality construction materials; II. Discarded materials as providers of unique technological, formal, and cultural features; III. Existing features as inputs to the design process; IV. The design process as the framework for ensuring high-quality reuse; V. Reuse as a catalyst for discussing paradoxes of sustainable design with students. These five points contribute to a strategic reorientation of design practices.