Environmental impacts of repurposing phone booths as COVID-19 sampling stations

ABSTRACT

The presented research examines the repurposing of decommissioned phonebooth units to COVID-19 sampling stations as a meaningful attempt to promote environmentally sustainable and socially resilient cities by contributing to a circular economy transition. The repurposing approach is compared to an adequate new build design using a life cycle assessment to evaluate the environmental implications and a time-cost comparison for their implementation. The results indicate that the remodelling of the phone booth improves environmental performance. The expanded need for refurbishment is offset by the need to use virgin material for the new stations. The benefit of finding reuse for the phone booths and extending their lifetime further supports this understanding, demonstrating the adaptive approach as a viable strategy for utilising an otherwise disused urban infrastructure with uncertain end-of-life. Cost-time results show that repurposing is less expensive due to the donated phone booths and low production numbers. On the other hand, new sampling stations take less time to produce. Future studies investigate user experiences and social benefits of the realised sampling station based on phone booth repurposing.

KEYWORDS:

• COVID-19 sampling station
• adaptive reuse
• life cycle assessment
• time-cost analysis
• societal resilience

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Martin Schoch

Martin Schoch is an assistant professor at the School of Architecture and Design of the King Mongkut’s University of Technology Thonburi (KMUTT), Thailand, where he teaches architectural design and environmental technology. He has a Ph.D. in Information Technology on the topic of Building Volume Optimization. His research focuses mostly on sustainable building aspects.

Sunaree Lawanyawatna

Sunaree Lawanyawatna is an assistant professor at the School of Architecture and Design, King Mongkut’s University of Technology Thonburi (KMUTT), Thailand. She lectures on the topic of residential architectural design and narrative design class. She is a director of the Humanitarian Design Laboratory; her research focuses on emergency response architecture, social aspects of architectural design, and design education.

Shabbir H Gheewala

Shabbir H. Gheewala is a professor at the Joint Graduate School of Energy and Environment (JGSEE), Thailand where he has led the Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment Lab for over 20 years. He also holds an adjunct professorship at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, USA. His research focuses on the sustainability assessment of energy systems; sustainability indicators; circular economy, and certification issues in biofuels and the agro-industry. He is a national expert on life cycle inventory as well as product carbon footprinting and water footprinting in Thailand. Shabbir mentors the research network on sustainability assessment and policy for food, fuel, and climate change in Thailand. With over 300 papers in peer-reviewed journals, he serves on the editorial boards of the International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment, Sustainable Production and Consumption, and the Journal of Cleaner Production. Along with graduate teaching and research, Shabbir has worked extensively with industry in Thailand providing training and consultancy to scores of companies with aspirations towards improvements in sustainability.