Something is thought to be sustainable these days if it can be recycled. However, getting products back from consumers, disassembling them and then reprocessing the material components is an ecologically impacting process. Virgin material is invariably required to improve the quality of the recyclate, minimising the benefits of recycling.
A sustainment, rather than leaping straight to recycling, focuses on re-use. Only re-use delivers guarranteed materials and energy conservation. Interestingly, a product that is designed up-front for re-use should receive more care during its first life time than a product that is designed for recycling: to the user, there is no difference between recycling and disposal, but there is a big difference between re-use and recycling.
Designing a product so that it has subsequent lives is a very difficult thing to do. It cannot be achieved generically, but only if there is a specific subsequent use in mind. The key then becomes setting in place the infrastructure that will ensure that the product gets re-used for the subsequent life for which it was designed. This may mean changing the nature of the initial product ownership. It also means that the designer stays with the product throughout their life, taking responsibility for its subsequent uses.
All of this applies equally to a building. Many buildings that claim to be multi-use in fact require major fit-outs for each different form of use. Designing a building for re-use means designing it for a different use after its first mode of occupation without the need for any major refurbishments.
