What’s the opposite of green building? Green un-building (aka, deconstruction)! And it’s catching on in the United States in that if-you-have-the-time-and-money-and-inclination kind of way. About 245,000 houses are torn town in the U.S. each year and roughly 1,000 of them are carefully deconstructed with up to 85 percent of their parts going to other projects or getting recycled. The remains from demolished and deconstructed houses as well as other buildings are enough to fuel the 1,000 or so stores in the country in the architectural-product reuse business, including Habitat for Humanity ReStores.
