Building deconstruction and building heritage preservation: a case study at Porto's world heritage historical centre

The feasibility of the application of building deconstruction practices to historical buildings is addressed here, by determining its contribution to preserve both tangible and non-tangible heritage, and to the reduction of non-renewable resources consumption. Therefore, a case Studies of a building's rehabilitation at the historical center of Porto, Portugal, is here presented and analyzed. The flows of materials' mass and embodied energy related to the rehabilitation process were accounted, analyzed, and compared, as a way to measure the environmental benefits of materials reuse, and the preservation of their historical value. The results showed that in general selected dismantling highly contributes to the reduction of waste, its well to reduce the loss of the embodied energy, especially when compared with scenarios of only facade retention. The preservation of historic value of construction systems and materials also benefits of such approach by Supporting all open-design methodology, in order to select and update design solutions and construction procedures during the rehabilitation process.