Tyler Hayden’s interesting article covering a home deconstruction in Santa Barbara was very informative. He finished his article asking the question: would Santa Barbara get on board with deconstruction?
Santa Barbara City College has offered two noncredit classes twice a year for a number of years that earn a Sustainable Building certificate. The Deconstruction & ReUse class contrasts deconstruction versus demolition with emphasis on reusing materials saved from the landfill.
The Repurposing & Refurbishing Class contrasts using an item as it was made versus recycling or landfilling the item. For example, you might have saved a solid wood door during the deconstruction process of a house. You repurpose the door as a table top or refurbish (cut to fit and refinish) the door as a door to fit the new house.
The instructor for these two classes is Carol Ashley. Carol has been preaching Deconstruction and Reuse, for many years, to anyone who will listen! Carol has an architectural reuse warehouse in Goleta called Demo 2 Design.
The article zeroed in on an extreme issue with reuse: where to store the materials you save during deconstruction. Hayden pointed to Reiff’s warehouse in Oakland as being an exception. For several years Habitat For Humanity had a reuse store in Goleta. It closed during COVID. Locally we have had Carol’s warehouse for 24 years. And now, the need for an alternative to high-lease, difficult-to-find, storage/resale space, has prompted her to begin developing a strategic system for marketing material without a warehouse.
The local government agencies need to be involved for deconstruction to get a true foothold in Santa Barbara County.
