Circular Economy and Design Part 2 – Disassembly and Reuse

This course is the second in a two-part series on the principles and practices of circular design in architecture. In this panel discussion, professionals from deconstruction research, supply chain management, policy, and design backgrounds will share their perspectives. The discussion will explore how local laws and the establishment of circular infrastructural networks can facilitate reuse of buildings and their component parts. Attendees will gain insight into why architectural reuse and planning for disassembly necessitates significant changes in the design, construction, and management of buildings.

Speakers:
Mike Gable, Executive Director, Construction Junction; Co-founder, Project RE_
Felix Heisel, Assoc. AIA, Freier Architekt AKBW; Assistant Professor, Cornell University; Director, Circular Construction Lab
Dan Stine, AIA, IES, CSI, CDT, Well AP, Director of Design Technology, Lake|Flato

Moderators:
Greg Bencivengo, AIA, Associate, Slade Architecture
Wei Wang, AIA, LEED AP BD+C, Associate, Dattner Architects

About the Speakers:
Mike Gable is the founding Executive Director of Construction Junction, a Pittsburgh-based nonprofit retailer promoting conservation through the reuse of building materials. Under Gable’s 24 years of leadership, CJ has grown into a 2 million operation with over 30 staff including an award-winning job training program for Goodwill clients with disabilities and a variety of hiring partnerships with organizations placing returning citizens in jobs with CJ’s retail and deconstruction operations.  He is a co-founder of Project RE_, an innovative partnership with the Urban Design Build Studio launched to engage architecture students in community-based projects using reclaimed building materials. Construction Junction also launched Reuse Retail, an inventory tracking platform developed to comprehensively manage and market donated building materials. CJ recently became a project partner in Urban Wood Economy’s portfolio of projects focused on capturing carbon and creating jobs through scaling sources of urban/reclaimed wood and lumber.

Before leading Construction Junction, Gable managed an organic farm for the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank. He has a BA in Environmental Studies from the University of California at Santa Barbara. He spreads the reuse message through participation as a member of the Pittsburgh American Institute of Architects’ Committee on the Environment and serving on the Board of Directors of Build Reuse in the role of president for 5 years and recently moved into the role of vice president.

Felix Heisel is working towards the systematic redesign of the built environment as a material depot in a continuous cycle of use and reconfiguration. He is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Architecture at Cornell University’s College of Architecture, Art, and Planning, where he directs the Circular Construction Lab. Heisel is one of the founding partners of the Circularity, Reuse, and Zero Waste Development (CR0WD) network in New York State, as well as a founding partner of 2hs Architekten und Ingenieur PartGmbB Hebel Heisel Schlesier in Germany, an office specializing in the development of circular prototypologies. He has received various awards for his work and published numerous books and articles on the topic, including Building Better – Less – Different: Circular Construction and Circular Economy (Birkhäuser, 2022), Cultivated Building Materials (Birkhäuser, 2017) and Building from Waste (Birkhäuser, 2014). Heisel graduated from Berlin University of the Arts and has taught and conducted research at universities around the world, including the Berlage Institute, the Ethiopian Institute of Architecture, Building Construction and City Development, the Future Cities Laboratory Singapore, ETH Zurich, KIT Karlsruhe, and Harvard GSD.

Dan Stine is the Director of Design Technology at Lake|Flato in San Antonio, Texas, where he leads the internal research program, Investigations. He is a registered architect (WI), educator, author, blogger, and international speaker. In addition to teaching graduate architecture students at NDSU, he has written 17 textbooks, including the #1 Revit book in North America, which is used extensively in the academic market. Committed to climate action, Stine was on a six-person team commissioned by the American Institute of Architects to write the recently released AIA Climate Action Business Playbook. He also serves on the AIA Committee on the Environment (COTE) Leadership Group and chairs a national Illuminating Engineering Society (IES) committee. Dedicated to furthering the design profession, Stine has given presentations on building performance and design technology in North America, Europe, Singapore, and Australia. He has also presented at AIA conferences (National, TX, MN), AIA COTE working groups (Philly, New Orleans, San Antonio, LA), universities (Virginia Tech, Penn State, Pratt, University of MN, UTSA, and more), lightfair, NVIDIA GTC, Autodesk University, and more.

Greg Bencivengo is an architect at Slade Architecture. Bencivengo has brought sustainability-focused initiatives to the forefront of his design work, leading a materials research group, serving on the Steering Committee for the Design for Freedom (DFF) initiative, and co-developing parts of the DFF Toolkit. He believes in architecture’s capacity to reflect and influence cultural behavior and that a circular, integrated design model can reinforce this potential.

Wei Wang is an architect at Dattner Architects and serves as the New York State Representative for the Young Architects Forum (YAF) and the Committee on the Environment (COTE) liaison for YAF. Her research focuses on building materials and circular design principles with a goal to apply them in daily practice. Wang believes that adopting circular design is the way forward to minimize waste and achieve good design without sacrificing economic gain.

If you register for a virtual ticket, you will receive an email with a Zoom link to access the program.