As a designer, how confident you are to incorporate recycled building materials in your

projects?

In my opinion, everyone knows recycled building materials are good for sustainability and
environmentally friendly; however, in fact, there are many impacts during a design project.

1. Clients preference: almost architectural project rely on clients’ preference, when

doing an architectural service, the suggestions of client always are the first element
to consider by designers.
2. Budget limit: every project has a budget, the good design is better to under this,
therefore, there are many limitations when selecting a building material.
3. Duration: the duration of the materials also needs to consider when choosing a
building material. For example, timber and concrete, for long duration consideration,
the concrete building is better than timber.
4. Maintenance: the maintenance is an important part for selecting materials when
doing a design stage. The cost and energy use need to consider during maintenance.
5. Strength: some special building type requires a strong strength for the structural
material, a good example is skyscape, common material for this building type is
concrete structure. If replace by timber, the requirement for safety is not achieved.

Although many impacts will affect the selection of building material, the recycled materials
should introduce to building construction. The benefits of recycled materials cannot be
ignored:

1. Extension of materials’ life cycle.

2. Lower the price of materials.
3. Resource - saving.
4. Reducing the building waste.
5. Reduction of landfill.

Therefore, if the recycled materials can achieve or even better than the property of the
conventional materials, the recycled materials have no reason to do not use it. Personally, the
recycled materials are very likely used into my design project, even to persuade the clients to
accept the ideas by representing the benefits of using recycled material in a building.