The constraint was not the structure. It was the access road running along the southern elevation, which had to stay open for the neighbouring units throughout.

Sequencing around a live road

We took the building down away from the road, working the high-reach from the north and dropping each section inward. The exclusion zone was re-marked every time the machine repositioned, and the spotter had authority to stop the work — which he used twice, both times correctly.

Sorting as we went

Strip-out first: fittings, timber, insulation. Steel recovered while it was still accessible. Then the frame in planned sections.

Steel — 118 t, straight to the scrap merchant
Clean concrete — 640 t, crushed on site
Timber — 34 t, recovered
Residual mixed — 8% by weight, the only stream that went to landfill

What it changed for the client

The crushed concrete became the sub-base for the replacement yard surface. One material stream never left the parcel: no gate fee, no lorry movements, no imported aggregate. On the final account, that was two line items that simply were not there.