Deconstruction Project Planning Considering Local Environmental Impacts

At present deconstruction project planning and related research focus mainly on economic issues including costs for equipment, workers and material disposal. Nevertheless, deconstruction of buildings can have major impacts on the local environment in terms of noise, dust and vibrations. Usually these environmental concerns are not included in deconstruction planning. But they can be harmful for humans, animals and the surrounding built environment. Analyses of different deconstruction techniques show major differences in noise, dust and vibrations. To use this potential to mitigate local environmental impacts, principals and deconstruction managers have to perform environmental conscious detailed deconstruction planning. In support of balancing these environmental issues with economic and technical aspects, a multi-criteria decision approach can help in the planning phase. In this paper a combination of the multi-criteria decision analysis methods Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and Multi-Attribute Value Theory (MAVT) is embedded in a system for the planning of deconstruction projects based on deconstruction techniques applied to single building components. The structure of this system is described in detail, encompassing the procedure of modelling the overall planning and decision making process as well as the application of the decision making logic. Expert knowledge and experimental noise, dust and vibration measurements related to different deconstruction techniques form the system database. The system is exemplarily applied to deconstruction planning of a small one-level building. Finally, its possible future practical implementation is addressed.