ABSTRACT
Architectural decomposition is going to be more prevalent in the future. As the need to salvage components and materials from buildings that are being dismantled increases, the need for buildings to be designed as decomposable will increase. Designing buildings from recycled parts will require a rethinking of the design process. It will more resemble the process of designing and building the informal dwellings found around the world in slum settlements. The result may be more industrialized panel and box technologies, rather than bricks and sticks. There will be an ad hoc element to the design process in cases where the architect must utilize the materials and assembles that have just been salvaged from a building in the process of being disassembled. Much of this already occurs in a modest way in flea markets that recycle old doors, windows, fireplace mantles, and so on. Eventually all buildings will be designed to be easily decomposed and reused. They will tend to be made up of prefabricated assembles, even entire boxes. The Montreal Habitat 67 housing project by Moshe Safdie was an early experiment in stacking boxes, much like shipping container architecture that has become popular recently (Figure 43). Unlike Habitat, the containers can be relocated and reassigned. Shipping containers appear to be at the vanguard of decompositional architecture.
