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Interior Construction (C10)

Materials: Fittings

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Issues
Interior construction has a very high potential for maximizing material resource efficiency because interior construction is usually viewed as cyclical: It is the portion of building construction which changes the most frequently due to fashion, space requirements, and developments in technology. Framing systems, wall, ceiling, and floor finishes, and furnishings and equipment are all subject to changes affected not only by time and use, but by tenant moves, business expansion, and marketing and production issues. Material components for interior construction are found in a variety of CSI divisions, and affect all aspects of sustainable design - from resource and energy efficiency to human productivity.

(From SDRG:) Metals are not often thought of as an environmentally-appropriate material. The mining, manufacture, and transportation of metals result in some of the highest embodied energy of all construction materials. However, metals also have properties that make them environmentally desirable, including: Easy recycling, strength, durability, malleability, and negligible out-gassing. The key to using metals in an environmentally responsible way is to make certain that metals are the most appropriate material for the application, use products with recycled content, and recycle all construction site waste.

Wood has the characteristic of being both structural and ornamental. It is used throughout the world for a multitude of tasks from simple structural applications to highly finished decoration. Because of its wide acceptance and many applications the demand for wood remains high. Wood has the environmental advantages of being a natural, renewable material with a very low level of embodied energy. In fact, of all building materials it has nearly the lowest level of embodied energy, as shown in the chart on the next page.

Plastics are composed of a mixture of organic material created by a chemical manufacturing process. The most common sources are biomass material such as oil, natural gas and coal. Biomass is technically a renewable resource, but the time required to replace it is measured in millions of years making it effectively, a finite resource. For this reason the use of this limited supply of a natural resource deserves careful thought and consideration. A concern over the use of some plastics stems from the toxic waste that results from their production, installation, and smoke produced during building fires. Plastics made from polyethylene, polyester, and most plastic lumber products which are made from recycled mixed plastics are considered to be less harmful than other types of plastics. Another consideration is the high embodied energy of plastic.