Deconstructive Practice Research Articles

Critical factors for assessing building deconstructability: Exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis

In various cities/other urban settlements, buildings are replaced with newer stocks, ending many buildings' lives. Unfortunately, these buildings nearing or at end-of-useful lives are mostly not deconstructed; instead, they get demolished, resulting in waste generation and pollution, among other environmental concerns. Deconstruction supports closing the material loop in construction, facilitating reuse at end-of-life of the building; however, it is not always easy to assess the feasibility of deconstruction for existing buildings – deconstructability. For this purpose, this paper investigated critical factors that needed to be checked to make informed decisions about the deconstructability of buildings. These factors cover economic, social, environmental, legal, and technical dimensions. Based on the exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), 31 significant drivers were identified. These drivers were classed into seven factors. The findings in this paper contribute to the practice of deconstruction, mainly supporting deconstructability decision-making and are helpful for deconstruction/demolition auditors, waste-management consultants and/or other stakeholders with waste minimisation goals, particularly for buildings nearing or at the end-of-useful lives.

Advancements in Building Deconstruction: Examining the Role of Drone Technology and Building Information Modelling

Deconstructing a building with the help of drones and BIM (building information modelling) is becoming increasingly common as a more efficient, eco-friendly, and affordable alternative to the traditional techniques of building disassembly. This paper presents a systematic review following the methodology of Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) to investigate the role of drone technology and BIM in building deconstruction. A total of 10 studies were identified based on the integration of drone technology with BIM, all of which proved promising in enhancing the process of building deconstruction. The analysis of the 35 and 3 non-academic selected data reveals several key findings. Firstly, BIM is not commonly used in deconstruction or demolition processes, particularly in managing fixtures and fittings of buildings. Secondly, the adoption of deconstruction-oriented design methods and the use of drone technology can significantly reduce the negative environmental impacts of building demolition waste. Lastly, the limited implementation of design for deconstruction practices in the construction industry hinders the realisation of environmental, social, and economic benefits associated with this approach. Overall, this systematic review highlights the potential of drone technology and BIM in improving building deconstruction practices, while also identifying knowledge gaps and areas for further research and development on this topic.

Об элементах деконструктивного подхода в экзегезе Иоанна Златоуста

This article attempts to identify elements of deconstruction in the exegetical practices of John Chrysostom. To achieve this goal, a brief description of the basic principles and purpose of deconstruction is given and deconstructive practices in the exegesis of John Chrysostom are revealed. The authors conclude that the following elements of deconstructive strategy are implicitly present in exegesis: preserving and updating the tradition, searching for what was forgotten in it; replenishment, indicating the openness of the text and its non-identity; the issue of translation and language of concepts; focusing on paradoxes and intractability; discovering the natural metaphoricity of words and concepts; focus on context, etymology, words, prepositions, particles, prefixes. In exegesis, as in deconstruction, the outcome of interpretation is not guaranteed as methodically achievable knowledge. Thus, the deconstructivist strategy retains the classical philosophical motive of continuous renewal of knowledge and is a certain form of exegete that protects tradition from stagnation.

Integration of BIM and design for deconstruction to improve circular economy of buildings

Faced with the environmental impacts caused by civil construction, including the large consumption of resources and waste generation, the reuse of materials and construction elements in project's early stage is considered as a possible solution in this research, which draws on theoretical reference of Open Building and Circular Economy. In this way, integrated to these approaches, the concept of Design for Deconstruction (DfD) for the design of buildings addresses the elaboration of the project with the final objective of dismantling buildings, in a partial or total way, allowing and increasing material recycling and mainly the reuse of constructive elements in the circular construction chain. However, despite the knowledge developed about DfD, the application of this concept is still incipient and the deconstruction practice remains unsatisfactory and still can be improved in many ways. The operationalization DfD in a BIM environment has the benefit of supporting the design process and subsequent deconstruction management. In this regard, the aim of this study is to propose a solution to expand the practice of deconstruction through the use of a BIM tool in buildings design, implemented in Autodesk Revit using Dynamo. To validate the artefact, a case study was conducted.

DeCO - Guidelines for the deconstruction of recent buildings

The project “DeCO - Guidelines for the Deconstruction of recent buildings” developed standardized procedures (guidelines) for the deconstruction of recent and contemporary buildings. DeCO associated a Deconstruction Worksheet with each reference construction package, covering contemporary construction techniques almost entirely. End-of-life worksheets of the most common insulating materials complete this documentation. The authors developed practical procedures that can be used directly on site and may represent a direct and rapid impact in increasing construction material recycling and reuse rates within the perspective of Circular Economy models in the Construction sector thus reducing waste disposal. The project highlighted that deconstruction practices are more labour intensive than conventional mechanical demolition activities thus can cause an increase in estimated demolition costs while on the other hand a systematic disassembly could decrease costs and volumes of landfilling mineral CDW and can be a first step in increasing construction material recycling and reuse rates, within the perspective of Circular Economy models in the Construction sector.

Deconstruction in Tasmanian New Heritage Architecture

The literary-philosophical practice of deconstruction has suffered abuse in architectural discourse for decades. Popularised interpretations of metaphor-heavy and art-referencing iconic architecture have undermined the potential of an exercise that holds potential for much insight. This paper looks to recover some of that potential burnt out in flagrant forms and beaten down in opaque missives of discursive deliria. Deconstruction is not, however, the object under consideration, but rather the device through which it operates. The object of this paper is Architecture built onto and into existing Heritage fabric. The Architecture — Captain Kelly’s Cottage (2018) by John Wardle Architects; Bozen’s Cottage (2019) by Taylor and Hinds; and Install House (2019) by Partners Hill — is all found on the small island of Tasmania. These powerful works are celebrated for their object status and their adroit condensations of peoples and contexts, as well as the historical and the contemporary. They are given gravity by a weight of facts and accounts of history, highlighted by age-value remnants and exquisitely crafted interventions. Captain Kelly’s Cottage, Bozen’s Cottage, and Install House are positioned in this paper as manifesting deconstruction. This paper does not claim that their architects designed with deconstruction in mind, rather that the intrinsic parameters of their architectural complexes implicate aporia, and that the interventions can be read to develop the potentials these aporia offer. Further, this paper suggests the practice of Heritage-related Architecture as translation and conversions that inherently affords potential for deconstruction in design and interpretation. This paper, thus, reframes deconstruction in Architecture, establishing a more appropriate and pertinent location in discourse on Heritage-related work. At the same time, it offers its readers a translation of deconstruction into Architecture theory-criticism as material construction.

Effectiveness of four deconstructive meditative practices on well-being and self-deconstruction: study protocol for an exploratory randomized controlled trial

IntroductionThe efficacy of interventions based on mindfulness and compassion has been demonstrated in both clinical and general population, and in different social contexts. These interventions include so-called attentional and constructive meditation practices, respectively. However, there is a third group, known as deconstructive meditation practices, which has not been scientifically studied. Deconstructive practices aim to undo maladaptive cognitive patterns and generate knowledge about internal models of oneself, others and the world. Although there are theoretical and philosophical studies on the origin of addiction to the self or on the mechanisms of action associated with the deconstruction of the self, there are no randomized controlled trials evaluating these techniques in either a healthy population or clinical samples. This study aims to evaluate the effect of three deconstructive techniques by comparing them to mindfulness in the general population.Methods and analysisA randomized controlled clinical trial will be conducted with about 240 participants allocated to four groups: (a) mindful breathing, (b) prostrations, according to Tibetan Buddhist tradition; (c) the Koan Mu, according to Zen Buddhist tradition; and (d) the mirror exercise, according to Toltec tradition. The primary outcome will be the qualities of the non-dual experience and spiritual awakening, measured by the Nondual Embodiment Thematic Inventory, assessed at pre- and post-treatment and at 3- and 6-month follow-ups. Other outcomes will be mindfulness, happiness, compassion, affectivity and altered state of consciousness. Quantitative data will be compared using mixed-effects linear regression models, and qualitative data will be analysed through thematic analysis and using the constant comparative method from grounded theory.Ethics and disseminationApproval was obtained from the Research Ethics Committee of Aragon, Spain. The results will be submitted to peer-reviewed specialized journals, and brief reports will be sent to participants on request.Trial registrationClinicalTrials.gov NCT05317754. Registered on August 2,2022.

视觉实验——解构助力学生设计方法育成的探索与实践——以视觉设计基础课程中的平面构成教学为例

视觉实验——解构助力学生设计方法育成的探索与实践——以视觉设计基础课程中的平面构成教学为例

Deconstruction. Critical Interventions for the 21st Century and Beyond

This essay seeks to make a case for deconstruction as a kind of critical intervention for responding to and dealing with the opportunities and challenges of the 21st century and beyond. Toward this end, it proceeds in three steps or movements. (1) The first part will deconstruct deconstruction, deliberately employing what will be revealed as an inaccurate vernacular understanding of the term in order to extract a more precise and technical characterization of the concept. (2) The second part will investigate the constitutive elements of deconstruction, focusing attention on its two-step procedure, which has been deliberately designed to be a kind of distortion of Hegelian dialectics. (3) Finally, the third part will examine the opportunities and the challenges of the theory and practice of deconstruction indicating how and why it can be considered a critical intervention, albeit one that is not without its own potential problems and vulnerabilities.
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 Received: 29/10/2022. Reviewed: 13/12/2022. Accepted: 23/12/2022.

Measuring Psychological Mechanisms in Meditation Practice: Using a Phenomenologically Grounded Classification System to Develop Theory-Based Composite Scores

Deepening our understanding of the mechanisms by which meditation practices impact well-being and human flourishing is essential for advancing the science of meditation. A recent phenomenologically grounded classification system distinguishes attentional, constructive, and deconstructive forms of meditation based on the psychological mechanisms these practices primarily target or necessitate. Our main aim was to understand whether this theory-based taxonomy could be used as a guiding principle for combining established psychological self-report measures of meditation-related mechanisms into psychometrically adequate composite scores. We used cross-sectional data to compute meditation composite scores in three independent samples, namely meditation-naïve healthy older adults from the Age-Well trial (n = 135), meditation-naïve older adults with subjective cognitive decline from the SCD-Well trial (n = 147), and healthy long-term meditators (≥ 10,000 h of practice including one 3-year meditation retreat) from the Brain & Mindfulness project (n = 29). The psychometric properties of the composite scores were assessed via floor and ceiling effects, composite intercorrelations, interpretability, and convergent validity in relation to well-being, anxiety, and depression. Three theoretically derived meditation composite scores, reflecting mechanisms involved in attentional, constructive, and deconstructive practices, displayed adequate psychometric properties. Separate secondary confirmatory factor analyses empirically corroborated the theoretically predicted three-factor structure of this classification system. Complementing data-driven approaches, this study offers preliminary support for using a theoretical model of meditation-related mechanisms to create empirically meaningful and psychometrically sound composite scores. We conclude by suggesting conceptual and methodological considerations for future research in this area.

Taking Apart Buildings and Systems: In Conversation with Mae Bowley of Re:Purpose Savannah

AbstractMae Bowley directs Re:Purpose Savannah, a women‐run organisation that trains and employs women in the practice of deconstruction. Like many such outfits, they work to divert materials from landfill as a way to combat wasteful economic and political systems that devalue people, forests and cultural heritage. Jane Mah Hutton and Alison Creba engage in a conversation with her about her work and its aspirations.

Anthropology, Feminism and the Postmodern Context

In a recent article, Marylin Strathern (1987) suggested that feminism and anthropology exist in fundamental tension, stemming from the different ways they constitute their subject matter as “other,” and from their divergent conceptualizations of experience. Whereas anthropology attempts, if incompletely, to bridge the gap between self and other, the authority of feminism resides in the maintenance of that gap – here, between women and men. However I argue that not all feminist writing can be seen in this light. In the postmodern situation feminism and anthropology clearly intersect, for both employ forms of deconstructive practice to expose and possibly critique the contexts in which “others” (including the writers themselves) are embedded.

BIM for Deconstruction: An Interpretive Structural Model of Factors Influencing Implementation

Transitioning from demolition to deconstruction practices for end-of-life performances is gaining increasing attention following the need for the construction industry to minimise construction and demolition waste. Building information modelling (BIM) presents an opportunity for sustainable deconstruction. However, the notion of BIM for deconstruction (BIMfD) is still in its infancy in the United Kingdom. Although a few studies on BIMfD are evident, a focus on identifying the underlying factors necessary for successful implementation of BIMfD is lacking. The purpose of this study was to identify and analyse the underlying factors necessary for BIMfD implementation in the UK construction industry. It employed a four-stage research design. The reviewed literature explored extant views on BIM implementation factors to identify an initial list of possible factors influencing BIMfD implementation. Subsequently, a mix of questionnaire, focus group discussions and structured interviews were employed at various stages to refine and contextualise 15 factors necessary for BIMfD implementation in the UK construction industry. The contextual interrelationships among the factors were evaluated using interpretive structured modelling (ISM). This evaluation culminated in a BIMfD implementation factor model. The findings identified BIMfD experts, responsiveness of business models to innovative practices and industry’s acceptance to embrace change as the principal factors influencing BIMfD implementation in the UK. The implications of the findings attest that BIMfD experts and advisors must champion the adoption and implementation of BIMfD in the UK and business models need to become more responsive to accommodate BIMfD innovative practices. A BIMfD framework was conceptualised. Even though the BIMfD framework was designed from the UK perspective, the global construction industry can leverage the outcomes of this study. This paper, therefore, brings to the fore, a hierarchical BIMfD implementation factor model to support improved deconstruction practices in the construction industry.

Wood(s): Imagining How a Materials Bank can Catalyse Circular Timber Flows in Leuven, Belgium

This paper constructs an alternative history of wood in Leuven (Belgium) to help contextualize the city’s contemporary project for a building materials bank as part of their larger efforts to make the urban metabolism more circular. Focusing on the history of Leuven’s forests, canal, and deconstruction practices, this paper aims to show how the materials bank will also intervene into the larger overlapping timber flows of the region. By analysing how (circular) wood flows were strongly intertwined with urban and landscape development projects in pre-industrial Leuven, the paper speculates on how the materials bank could revitalize broken spatial connections towards more circular timber flows in Leuven, while catalysing circular urban landscape and infrastructure development. It shifts focus from a materials bank as a circular waste management response “redirecting” wood waste flows to an integrated infrastructural question addressing path dependencies in the wood extraction, processing, consumption and disposal chain.

BIM uses for deconstruction: an activity-theoretical perspective on reorganising end-of-life practices

Despite that Building Information Modelling (BIM) is often praised as a whole life-cycle methodology, possibilities for deconstruction are consistently overlooked. This study demonstrates what those possibilities may be. Previous studies showed that: deconstruction practices pose several site-based challenges; BIM implementations may help practitioners to address such challenges; and activity theory offers a framework to understand BIM implementations. We aimed to explore how deconstruction practices can be reorganised with BIM by applying an activity-theoretical perspective to a rather unique case-study. The selected case concerned the deconstruction of a nursing home so that many of its elements could be reused to construct a school. During this project, we implemented BIM in three essential activities: analysing existing conditions, labelling of reusable elements and planning deconstruction. The implementations resolved initial problems related with the use of traditional drawings, schedules and instructions. They nevertheless also triggered several additional problems that we attempted to address in successive steps. The organisation of the activities so evolved, which culminated in the formation of three new BIM uses for deconstruction: “3D existing conditions analysis,” “reusable elements labelling” and “4D deconstruction simulation”. These concepts complement existing BIM use taxonomies and can be appropriated in future deconstruction projects.

Opposing deconstruction: the value aspect of the theory of artistic wholeness

The article discusses the legacy of the literary critic M. Girshman, in particular, his book A Work of Literature. The Theory of Artistic Wholeness [Literaturnoe proizvedenie. Teoriya khudozhestvennoy tselostnosti] (2007), which argues the priority of the holistic and value-based approach to literary criticism over Postmodernist deconstruction practices. According to Girshman, the language of a literary work is an embodied and materialized aspect of aesthetic reality and beauty, incorporating the Truth and the Good. The scholar sees it as the ‘existential-semantic assumption’ of literary criticism. O. Minnullin defends Girshman’s method and challenges the ‘instrumental’ approach of ‘deconstructionist’ philologists, which he believes reduces the aesthetic space: significance in place of meaning; the discourse in place of the world; actions or simulation in place of existence; the scribe in place of the author; a construction or deconstruction in place of wholeness, etc. The article is written in response to the polemic reaction of ‘deconstructionists’ to V. Tyupa’s ‘Literary Theory Two’ As a Threat to Humanities, published in Voprosy Literatury in 2019.

Critical Gibson-Graham: Reading Capitalocentrism for Trouble

J. K. Gibson-Graham’s postcapitalist approach to diverse economies has unleashed a flourishing of research and activism for other worlds. One reason for its successes is found in the intricate links between a feminist and antiessentialist critique of political economy and an experimental, enabling, and affirmative practice of economy. While initially powered by explicitly critical and negating energies, diverse-economies scholars have increasingly accentuated an affirmative, “post/critical” register. This essay explores what has happened to “capitalocentrism” in this process. Initially an invitation to consider our performative complicity with the seeming inescapability of capitalism, capitalocentrism has lately been positioned as an already established theoretical object and a problem already settled. Returning to Gibson-Graham’s affinities with deconstruction, this essay seeks to reproblematize capitalocentrism through a thinking strategy called “reading for trouble.” Insisting on the theoretical and political potentials that capitalocentrism opens for critical and deconstructive practice, the notion becomes a key word for troublesome work ahead.

Can Interdisciplinary Insights Encourage a Meaningful Response to the Climate Crisis? Narratives from the Great Barrier Reef, Australia

How we understand the contemporary socio-environmental challenges associated with climate change is shaped by our research disciplines. This paper explores how interdisciplinary collaboration can form new understandings of, and communication about, environmental change. On Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, mass coral bleaching prompts researchers to consider how our work can contribute to environmental stewardship that more effectively addresses the causes and consequences of climate change. Here, we report on one element of an ongoing collaboration involving researchers working in the fields of coastal geomorphology, human geography and art. In the spirit of geohumanities as an interdisciplinary approach to understanding places, we explore the work of narrative as a device for engaging with and communicating about the environmental challenge of coral reef degradation. Through independent and plaited narratives based on field research on the Great Barrier Reef, we undertake a deconstructive practice of “uncommoning” to consider what interdisciplinary collaboration enables, and how it opens up possibilities for engaging with, and communicating about, environmental crises. Sharing a curiosity about the island environment, each participant uses metaphors to evoke landscape features; however, they each work through different imaginative and emotional connections to place, by: reducing observations to measurements, evoking emotional responses, and provoking thinking about the multifarious, often global, processes contributing to the state of the environment.

“Dark Ontology” in the Historical Context of the Denial of Consciousness

We discuss the “axioms of dark ontology” proposed by the US philosopher Levi Bryant. The axioms are analyzed in a context of the historical development of diverse philosophical viewpoints united by the concept of the denial of consciousness. The “deniers” declare the direct conscious experience to be an illusion. As for the philosophical provisions that will not fit into their very limited conceptual straitjacket, they proclaim those inimical to science and therefore subject to elimination from the epistemological discourse altogether. Analyzing the viewpoints of the denialist philosophers, we show their inner contradictions that primarily are related to their inability to apply their assertions about consciousness to their own methods, arguments, and conclusions. We review the historical development of the critique regarding the denialists’ views taken from sometimes very diverse philosophical corners. We show that Bryant’s assertions are not axioms in any logical sense, but rather a scientism manifesto created in response to a technocratic demand for dehumanization. We also show how Bryant’s rejection of the human-centered position of philosophy follows from deconstruction practices undertaken by the structuralists and poststructuralists. To advance his ideas, Bryant imitates Ludwig Wittgenstein’s forms of discourse. He also engages moralizing and sophistry. We show that Bryant’s failure to create a robust, coherent system demonstrates weaknesses in the poststructuralist ideas that his concepts stem from. We conclude that the process that the doctrine of the denial of consciousness becomes mainstream attests, in Heidegger’s terms, the final stage of European nihilism and the crisis of science and philosophy of knowledge.

Violence Reframed: Constructing Subjugated Individuals as Agents, Not Images, through Screen Narratives

Violence Reframed: Constructing Subjugated Individuals as Agents, Not Images, through Screen Narratives