Supporting deconstruction practices with information systems using ethnographic-action research

Socio-environmental pressures motivate the construction industry to adopt working practices that enable the reuse of building elements. Deconstruction, as an alternative to demolition, is a major lever for more efficient resource management and enables closed-loop material cycles. Information systems have potential benefits for deconstruction practices, but their implementations are limited by a lack of understanding on how demolition workers create, exchange and communicate information and what artefacts they thereby use. This research has therefore two goals: understanding on-site information requirements in deconstruction projects and exploring how information systems can be iteratively developed and implemented into these project contexts. Through applying an ethnographic-action research methodology on a real-world deconstruction project, two information systems are iteratively developed and implemented: (I) a virtual environment to support tagging façade elements, and (II) a 4D model to support deconstruction planning. Insights are provided – firstly – into deconstruction routines and the tacit knowledge that demolition workers possess and use to deal with these routines, and – secondly – into how the two information systems supported the practitioners in their ongoing project works. These ethnographic-action perspectives provide new ways for researchers and practitioners to support deconstruction practices with information systems.