Creating for disassembly: is how design comes apart as important as how it’s put together?
In this Mix Roundtable with Specialist Group we explore how disassembly could be key to a more sustainable design future, offering the opportunity to reimagine, reconfigure and breathe new life into commercial spaces.
Feature in partnership with Specialist Group
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This article first appeared in Mix Interiors #232
Words and moderated by Harry McKinley
Designing-in flexibility is a response to new behaviours, but sometimes it means working with a rigid canvas.
The way we work is changing, the shape of our spaces shifting. Conversations around flexibility and adaptability can seem, at times, well worn. We know we need more nimble environments, we know we need to accommodate for greater collaboration (particularly when it comes to the workplace), and we know the ability to flex has to be baked into spatial designs from the outset. Yet while these ideas and principles are beginning to form the bedrock of how we conceive and create, our assembled experts agreed that, when discussing how to design for reuse and reconfiguration, we have to recognise that the bulk of this will be within existing buildings.
“The change in how we use the office is very much driven by hybrid working and sustainability,” explained John Robertson Architects’ Nathalie Bergvall. “But an existing building isn’t always that rational and doesn’t always lend itself to being modular in the way we need today. However, when considering sustainability, we have to keep them, not take them down. That means having to think creatively, but it’s a challenge we have to acknowledge.”
“BDG is renowned for the work we do to breathe life into old buildings,” continues the studio’s creative director, Mitch James. “It often means stripping back, even if just to the superstructure, and embracing what’s there. So we have to consider how flexibility and modularity are introduced in a way that is honest to the building. Celebrating the story of what was and bringing that into today’s era has to be the starting point.”
“Modularity has always been a part of the conversation in design and architecture, and as far as I know, it always becomes more important in a time of need,” noted Willmott Dixon’s Enrique Soler. “There was a lot of modularity infused in architecture after the Second World War, because it needed to be built at speed. Now we have the need again, a need for flexibility of spaces. So on the one hand we have to work with what we have, looking at building adaptability around what can’t be changed; and on the other hand, when looking at new buildings, they need to be shells capable of flexing.”
Modularity is rooted in adaptability, and adaptability is key to sustainability.
Multi-functional environments are, as Soler attested, what we need; what we need to work more effectively and build a culture that speaks to today. But flexibility also enables spaces to last, reducing the necessity for future change, to accommodate future demands.
“The greatest sustainability choice that can be made is to put disassembly and adaptability at the heart of how a project’s Ciaran O’Hagan Specialist Group Managing Director success is gauged,” stressed Exigere’s Jack Lewis. “I think I’m yet to see it. But if that was set as the fundamental success factor for clients, then everything drips down from them; the architects and interior teams get the time to implement that as part of the focus of the design, and cost then becomes a little bit higher up the agenda in terms of how things are then broken down and reused.”
“We all know that if you keep something for longer, it’s inherently more sustainable,” said tp bennett’s Ciaron Mullarkey. “If we build better and think much more about how spaces will work – where there are elements that might stay, and around that the possibility for change – then that’s a compelling and powerful way to design. A well performing space today is one that allows your business to change how they do things, just by changing the furniture. If quality is then put at the heart of those elements, there’s no reason a space can’t be rebranded for someone else without major intervention.”
“That’s it,” agreed James. “Putting disassembly and modularity at the heart of the conversation allows us to consider both value and sustainability. Leases are shorter and so we’re already thinking differently. If someone only has a space for three years, when thinking about fitting it out and the cost that comes with that, now they should be asking: what can I take with me when I leave?”
Designing for flexibility and reuse is not without its challenges. We need to come up with solutions.
There’s something vaguely utopian in the idea of spaces that inherently ex for a multitude of purposes, and which can exist in near perpetuity with enduring, ageless design. But as with most utopian ideas, reality can get in the way. What is an admirable, aspirational notion comes unstuck in places when confronted with certain practicalities, as well as cost implications and the banality of bureaucracy. Noble intentions require challenging these hurdles and devising achievable, pragmatic ways to overcome them.
Mullarkey noted that engineering is a limiting factor, not just in how buildings are constructed, but also with respect to what goes into them. Lewis agreed, noting that clients may need educating on what is required to make fixtures and fittings demountable or reusable, for example by eschewing chemical adhesives in favour of screws.
“We have one project we’re fitting out now and we know in two years they’re reglazing the whole building,” said Bergvall. “Everything that is near the windows, including joinery, they’re going to have to take down and then put back up. So I said we need to make it demountable. e joiner replied, ‘yeah, ne’, and that was it, end of the conversation; we didn’t even have to change the drawings. So the solutions aren’t always difficult, but we do need to be thinking about them, considering the future and actually having those conversations.”
For Specialist Group’s Ciaran O’Hagan however, there’s still a reticence from some clients to put their money where their mouth is when it comes to addressing these types of challenges: “There’s not a lot of people willing to pay more in the short term,” he opined. “But longevity, as well as adaptability, means the quality has to be there. For a material to last, for it to be reusable, it has to be robust. And we fundamentally need all areas of the industry to catch up with that conversation. We can make a product that will last for 30 years, but the knowledge isn’t always there as to why that’s not only sustainable, but delivers long-term value. We’re also able to come in early doors on projects and work with designers to look at what’s there already. We could take an existing worktop, sand it o and allow it to be designed back in, but for the most part the conversation just isn’t there yet – even if change is happening in small increments.”
Our table agreed that it’s an easier discussion to have with those for whom spaces are a long-term investment. But that a greater shift is needed for clients to understand that all spaces should be viewed through a long-term lens, because the more durability, adaptability and modularity that is baked into spaces from the outset, the more everyone benefits. Afterall, as dMFK’s Jonny Wong highlighted: “You could be that next occupier. Even with our own office here, hopefully we’ve designed it well enough – having spent a bit more on joinery, for example – that if we were to leave in 15 years, someone else can just touch it up instead of moving it all out.”
It’s not just how we design that will change, we have to change along with it; longevity trumps newness.
We assembled in the gloriously polished surrounds of dMFK’s London HQ – a bright, stylish, detail-driven space that embodies much of what our speakers came together to discuss. It’s flexible, aesthetically timeless and rooted in the values of community, collaboration and a shared culture. It’s perhaps these elements that afford a space longevity, but as Wong pointed out, “tastes change.” Visual appeal can’t wholly be sacrificed on the altar of sustainability and adaptability. “We could have made this office entirely mountable, but the honest answer is it wouldn’t have looked how we wanted it to,” he continued. “And, equally, no client wants the exact same thing. So we need to be able to balance this notion of longevity with the need for something to feel bespoke.”
“Which could entail evolving a new design language,” expressed James. “Panel joints might be visible instead of mitred, for things to come apart, representing a new way of expressing the design.”
If spaces and products are truly going to endure in the way they must, however, so as to be more sustainable, then our table agreed we must begin to tolerate imperfection; the signs of use. It’s a cultural tide change, but one that is possible if it can be combined with other, less altruistic motivators. There’s consensus that if materials gleaned from disassembly can actually save clients money – finding a second or third life with a bit of a spruce up, even if not pristine – then the case for modularity becomes an easier one to make. For those who are less inclined to budge, new models might need to be explored, such as furniture being loaned out by sustainability-minded manufacturers, and then returned when no longer needed. “In those cases, you don’t actually buy the chair or table,” explained Bergvall. “You pay for the couple of years you use it and, if you decide you don’t like the colour, or it’s starting to wear, you can change it.”
The future is bright and there’s positive appetite for progress.
To realise such an adaptable world requires change, a change that can feel monumental and even unachievable within the immediate future, particularly because it involves bringing “everyone to the table,” as Soler stressed. But even amongst those gathered, the mood was positive, the sense of possibility palpable. “Because we’re all aiming in the same direction,” he continued, “and that’s a rewarding thought, because it means we’re doing something right.”
“The reason we’re talking about this,” concluded Wong, “is because we all have the same agenda. We’re trying to improve the world and leave it better than we found it.”
