Basel – Socinstrasse 55a, 57 and 59 – Resource assessment of structural components

The buildings located in Socinstrasse 55a, 57 and 59 are three buildings erected between 1960 and 1965. Cast-in-place slabs, columns, walls form the main load-bearing structure of the building. The facade is partly made of precast concrete panels. A new project is planned, and it implies the demolition of building 59 and a facade of building 55a. Little-known and rarely implemented, the reuse of concrete components from obsolete buildings in new projects is a sustainable approach that promotes a circular economy. When reusing, the components of obsolete buildings are carefully dismantled without being crushed. They are then cleaned, possibly repaired, or trimmed, and reassembled with little transformation in a new project, maintaining their shapes and structural properties. In addition to maintaining the embodied energy and history of the reused components, reuse allows the construction industry to reduce demolition waste, greenhouse gas emissions, and material consumption. This report is a preliminary resource assessment and aims at inventorying and assessing all structural components of the planed-to-be-demolished parts of buildings situated in Socinstrasse 55a to 59, focusing on their potential value for reuse. Precast concrete facade panels and cast-in-place RC components are included. The assessment methodology, detailed in a complementary report, allows identifying all properties needed to evaluate the potential for reuse of a RC component: geometry, material properties, resistance, current condition, accessibility, future durability, aesthetics and environmental impacts. After reviewing available reports and drawings on the building, onsite visits are carried out to complete the information and visually inspect the structural components. During the inspection, the components are assessed with regards to their suitability for reuse and their condition is classified into a five-grade scale. Destructive and non-destructive investigations are also carried out to verify the material properties and the geometry and rebar layout of the RC components. Concrete cores are extracted to verify the compressive strength, local openings are made in the cover concrete to check the rebar layout and ground penetrating radar scans are done over a complete floor slab to verify the rebar spacing and concrete cover. The planed-to-be-demolished components represent approximately 800 m3 of material constituting the load-bearing system, with approximately 50 m3 of precast c