Green construction technology company Nexii manufactures pieces of buildings are manufactured in Squamish. The plant is also home to Nexii’s Research and Development division, which focuses on designing new technology and innovative green solutions.

Driving their R&D is a vision shared by Nexii and Squamish to build a vibrant circular economy that puts people and the planet first. Their recent Deconstruction Case Study put this concept in practice by looking at repurposing building material as an alternative to standard building demolition.

To put research into action, Nexii manufactured a 700 square foot Discovery Centre which was assembled in Downtown Squamish. The building was disassembled in the fall of 2021 and will be repurposed as a laneway house on Saltspring Island, BC. The Discovery Centre is a live example of design for deconstruction which refers to the approach of dismantling buildings at the end of their service life to reuse them in other ways to improve value retention and material recovery.

During this case study, Nexii found that design for deconstruction and reuse offsets nearly 70% of the embodied carbon from panel manufacturing and diverts 99.8% of waste from landfills. S350 hours of employment were generated from the disassembly process in Squamish and shows great promise for the future.