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This thesis contains an assessment and discussion of the sustainability of design for deconstruction. As a basis for the work, existing literature was reviewed and the gaps in existing knowledge highlighted. Environmental assessment methods were identified as a way to incentivise design for deconstruction. An analysis of LEED demonstrated minimal achievement of reuse credits, likely due to limited availability of reused materials. The supply chain can be developed in the future through the design for deconstruction of all new buildings. Quantifying the environmental benefits of design for deconstruction was underlined as a key strategy to encourage designers to consider the incorporation of design for deconstruction. A methodology was developed to account for designed-in future reuse at the initial design stage. This is based on a PAS2050 methodology (2008) which shares the environmental impact of an element over the number of predicted lives. In the course of this work it has been assumed that the typical building has a fifty year life span, a conservative estimate. Studies in this thesis limit analysis to a hundred year period, giving a possible two lives for the majority of elements. The methodology was used as a basis for the calculation of savings that occur by designing for deconstruction. Initial feasibility studies estimated that a 49% saving in embodied carbon is accomplished by designing for deconstruction. Having demonstrated the potential scope of savings, a tool, Sakura, was developed to enable designers to investigate the savings in embodied energy and carbon for their own schemes. Sakura was used to assess the savings that could be achieved for a range of case studies. Steel and timber frame structures demonstrated the greatest potential savings from design for deconstruction. School projects exhibited the highest savings when the building types were compared.

In the past few decades, world-wide interest in environmental preservation has involved researchers in a great challenge to find new approaches to manage the environmental impact of human activities. This challenge has been significantly highlighted in the construction sector. Lifecycle Assessment (LCA) has developed a variety of methodologies and tools to quantify and manage rates of consumption and emissions during the process of a building’s construction, service-life, and disposal. However, the building sector is not yet satisfied with the results of these methods and tools, due to the low level of sensitivity, lack of user-friendliness and precision. The principal goal of this research is to determine the level of confidence in prospective building lifecycle assessment (BLCA) methodologies and tools in the UK and their applicability to design and decision making. In addition, it investigates the differentiation of the results according to climatic and geographical variation. Therefore, it introduces a new prospective semi-quantitative framework to calculate some key factors such as total energy (including embodied energy and operational energy) during the building’s lifecycle, as well as the embodied carbon, and total environmental impact. The capability of this framework was tested through 132 modelling scenarios of a real case study (‘The Arts Tower’ of Sheffield, United Kingdom). In the study, a quantitative measurement approach was developed (an Excel-based spreadsheet) with a great flexibility in micro-detail modelling. This spreadsheet benefits from validated updatable databases and various-unlimited modelling programmes (such as Envest 2 and Ecotect 2011, in this research) to reach a more realistic decision in design. The results of this measurement approach were compared based on different modelling scenarios. The differences are based on the variety of building material scenarios through the case study building in Sheffield. The main outcome of this research is a framework of semi-quantitative prospective BLCA developed to achieve more precise results applicable to design and decision-making. The determination of the sensitivity and capability of this framework was conducted through both quantitative (132 modelling scenarios) and qualitative (surveys including questionnaires and interviews) approaches.

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The 2004 Boxing Day tsunami, which was a result of the fifth largest earthquake of the last century, caused great devastation in Sri Lanka, making more than 1,000,000 people homeless. The task of reconstruction after the 2004 tsunami was an onerous challenge to a developing country like Sri Lanka, which required the deliberate and coordinated efforts of all stakeholders for effective and efficient recovery of the affected community. This resulted in a large number of post-disaster housing reconstruction projects. A wide array of stakeholders came together on such projects to execute the final outcome. In the aftermath of early reconstruction efforts, dissatisfaction was expressed by some stakeholders. The areas of criticism included time, cost, quality, coordination with infrastructure and linkage to livelihoods. Nevertheless, the reconstruction provided an opportunity for the development of Sri Lanka. Thus, the industry sector of Gross National Product before and after the 2004 tsunami stood at 5.4 and 8.0 respectively. This was mainly due to the growth of housing output. Moreover, several legislations stipulate that housing is one of the three basic requirements necessary for a standard of living and personal security. Accordingly, the aim of this research is to explore and investigate how to identify, classify, capture and address the needs of stakeholders and manage their expectations from reconstruction projects, in order to deliver effective Post-Disaster Housing Reconstruction (PDHR) in Sri Lanka. In order to achieve the aim, data was collected in two phases. Expert interviews formed the preliminary phase of data collection which was directed towards identification, classification and exploring the relationships between the stakeholders. Stakeholder Circle ™ (Version 5) software aided the data analysis of expert interviews. Case studies, the secondary phase of data collection, were used to identify the strategies required to manage the needs and expectations of stakeholders in PDHR projects in Sri Lanka. NVivo (Version 8) was used to analyse case study data. This study contributes to knowledge by identifying, classifying and exploring relationships between stakeholders of PDHR projects in Sri Lanka. In addition it identifies strategies to manage their needs and expectations. Accordingly, key success and failure factors of PDHR are identified based on the phases of the Disaster Management (DM) cycle under four main headings. They are factors attached to the house; institutional and legal arrangements, knowledge and capacity factors, and factors pertaining to tsunami victims. Furthermore, the conceptual framework that emerged from the literature review, and which was refined using data gathered in the expert interviews, evolved into a 'theoretical framework' once the theory developed in the case study phase of data collection was applied. This forms a tool to the effective identification, classification, exploration of relationships and management of expectations of the stakeholders of PDHR projects in Sri Lanka. Gaps in the practical application of the proposed strategies were allied to the areas of sustainable urban development; township planning and declaration of the buffer zone; moving from land administration to land management; enactment of the Disaster Management Act and empowering Local Authorities; enforcing an incremental development programme; intervention planning; lack of guidelines and complexity of the language; mainstreaming disaster risk reduction into PDHR; learning from the past; coordination, communication, consultation and participatory approaches.

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Over the recent years the UK construction industry has seen an increasing level of interest in the use of design and build (D&B) as a construction procurement method. This appears to be mainly driven by an attempt by the industry to increase the level of integration in what is generally viewed as a fragmented industry. The main advantages associated with this procurement method that have been cited in reviewed literature have been numerous. Key advantages appear to be the following: single point responsibility for the whole project delivery encompassing design and construction, early contractor involvement resulting in potential cost savings and earlier completion, easy constructability and minimisation of design and construction risk to clients. Despite its perceived increase in adoption over the last decade as supported by the relatively recent Contracts in use survey in 2010 by the RICS, the construction industry is still experiencing problems associated with D&B procurement. This highlights the need to explore further how this procurement method is being used in practice. The exploration adopted in this research involves identification and evaluation of challenges encountered by key participants (clients, contractors and designers). In addition such an exploration is buttressed by the identification and evaluation of practice based enablers that key participants have used/proposed to use in order to manage better the challenges they have encountered with this procurement method. The nature of the problem investigated in this research is characteristically exploratory, fluid and flexible, data driven and context-sensitive. As a result a combination of in-depth review of related literature, semi-structured interviews and a questionnaire survey were used as main research techniques. The questionnaire survey was targeted at a wider and a different audience to the one used in semi-structured interviews. This approach was adopted in order to gain a holistic insight into this multi-faceted problem. The research shows that adopting D&B procurement method does not necessarily result in integration of design and construction processes. Significant time and effort will need to be spent in creating and facilitating integrative processes and systems to ensure that the gap between the theory and practice of D&B procurement is covered. D&B is not a one size fit all procurement method and each project characteristics and requirements needs to be methodically reviewed and understood to ensure that this fits with the unique features of D&B procurement method. The research implications mainly relate to the D&B procurement practice. Given the practice based enablers that it generates this has direct implications on how practitioners go about applying the processes and methods that facilitate integration of design and construction in a D&B procurement method set up. This, therefore, goes a long way to bridge the gap between the theory and practice of D&B procurement method. This potentially leads to unlocking this integrative procurement method’s benefits that were not previously realised. The output of this research is a framework for facilitating better integration of design and construction processes. Additionally the framework can also be used as a tool kit for effective use and for acting as an enabler for the flow and realization of potential benefits associated with D&B procurement method. It is expected that this framework will help in providing the much needed guidance to users (in particular infrequent/inexperienced users) of the D&B procurement method.

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