Comparative Experiment on Adaptive Reuse of Wood Stud Partition Walls: Integrating the DfD Concept into Building Component Design

Resource consumption and waste generation during the construction, renovation and demolition of buildings are global problems. Therefore, architects are required to consider the feasibility of the future deconstruction of buildings in the design phase, that is, design for disassembly (DfD). This paper presents a comparative experiment on the assembly and adaptation of a wood stud partition wall, for which the wall component was designed via conventional construction and the DfD concept. Upon comparing the results, it was found that the experimental group with DfD integration consumed less raw material but required more time during the assembly process. However, the novel design of the wall demonstrated obvious advantages with regard to labour savings, waste generation and quality control as well as modification flexibility during adaptation. These results have shown the feasibility of integrating the DfD concept into building component design and validated its related potential under experimental conditions. This work also provides useful information for architects, engineers and other architecture, engineering and construction practitioners in designing resource-efficient buildings using innovative techniques of (dis)assembly in the future.