temporary courthouse most detachable building

In the report ‘Circular Buildings – a measurement method for detachability’, the cepezed-developed and designed Temporary Courthouse in Amsterdam is the highest ranker of all tested projects. The report presents a new measuring method for determining and comparing demountability. It is an initiative of Dutch Green Building Council (DGBC), RVO, W/E Adviseurs and Alba Concepts.

demountable
The detachability index is suitable for measuring demountability at all levels within both utility projects and residential construction. For existing sustainability instruments such as GPR and BREEAM, it offers possibilities for the integration of the detachability aspect. After all, demountability is an important precondition for passing on building products and materials to subsequent cycles.

four aspects
The index examines four aspects that influence the detachability of building elements: the type of connections with which they are attached, the accessibility of those connections, possible traverses by, for example, piping and cables, and the shapes in which the elements are included. The index also applies a weighting factor related to the scores in the MPG (Environmental Performance of Buildings) system. For elements with a higher environmental impact, this creates an additional incentive to implement them as detachable as possible.

example projects
With the cooperation of the Central Government Real Estate Agency, ABN AMRO, Traject, de Architecten Cie and cepezed, the measurement method was tested in practice through five buildings including Circl, HOTT and Galileo. The Temporary Courthouse Amsterdam and The Green House in Utrecht are the cepezed-projects that were assessed. Both scored very well and the Temporary Courthouse Amsterdam even came out with the best score of all example projects: over eighty percent.

online available
During an official gathering at the end of September, the first copy of the report was already presented to the project leader Circular Construction Economy of the Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations, Esther ‘t Hoen. From now on, it is available for everyone through the website of the Dutch Green Building Council.