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78 FLAPS: 4
B U I LD I N G
M ER LI N O
REUSE
The construction and operation of buildings is
responsible for 41 percent of all primary energy
use and 48 percent of all carbon emissions,
BUILDING REUSE
and the impact of the demolition and removal
of an older building can greatly diminish the
advantages of adding green technologies to new
Sustainability, Preservation, construction. In Building Reuse: Sustainability,
Preservation, and the Value of Design, Kathryn
and the Value of Design Rogers Merlino makes an impassioned case that
truly sustainable design requires reusing and
KATHRYN ROGERS MERLINO is associate “A concise, compelling survey rich with insights “An essential text and inspiration for anyone trying K ATH RY N R O G ER S M ER LI N O reimagining existing buildings. Additionally,
Merlino calls for a more expansive view of
professor of architecture and director of the and real-world examples from across Washington to shape a healthy world by addressing human
preservation that goes beyond keeping only
Center for Preservation and Adaptive Reuse State, Merlino’s study makes a strong case for the habitats. Beautifully written and researched with
the most distinctive structures based on their
in the College of Built Environments at the many ways reusing older buildings improves case studies that demonstrate the amazing power
historical and cultural significance to embrace
University of Washington. neighborhood character, spurs economic growth, of design.”
the creative reuse of even unremarkable
and fosters environmental sustainability. Read, use, —JEAN CARROON, FAIA, LEED Fellow,
buildings for their environmental value.
and reuse this book!” Goody Clancy Architects
Building Reuse includes a compelling range
—STEPHANIE MEEKS, President and CEO,
of case studies — from a private home to an
National Trust for Historic Preservation, and “Merlino marshals evidence from an impressive
eighteen-story office building — all located
coauthor of The Past and Future City: How Historic variety of sources and cases to critique the discourse
in the Pacific Northwest, a region with a long
Preservation Is Reviving America’s Communities about building value. She adds an important
history of sustainable design and urban growth
voice to the chorus of practitioners and scholars
policies that have made reuse projects feasible.
“A welcome addition to the growing dialog on advocating reuse.”
Reusing existing buildings can be challenging
stewardship of the built environment. The —RANDALL MASON, School of Design,
to accomplish, but changing the way we think
detailed case studies provide meaningful insights University of Pennsylvania
about environmentally conscious architecture
to an underappreciated and often overlooked
has the potential to significantly reduce energy
sustainability strategy.”
SUSTAINABLE DESIGN SOLUTIONS consumption, carbon emissions, and waste.
—ROBERT YOUNG, author of Stewardship of the
FROM THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST
Built Environment: Sustainability, Preservation,
Jacket photographs: (front) The Kolstrand Building, and Reuse
Seattle, Washington (Photo by author). (back) Interior ISBN 978-0-295-74234-2
of the SIERR Building at McKinstry Station, Spokane,
90000
Washington (Photo courtesy of McKinstry). UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON PRESS
Seattle
9 780295 742342
Printed in South Korea www.washington.edu/uwpress
SUSTAINABLE DESIGN
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PACIFIC NORTHWEST
of
DAV I D E . M I L L E R , S E R I E S E D I T O R
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Architects of the Pacific Northwest have been celebrated for
a long-standing respect for the environment and a holistic
view of our place in it. This series spotlights innovative
design achievements by contemporary Northwest architects,
and supporting consultants, whose work reinforces core
principles and ethics of sustainable design. Reflecting
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Daylighting Design in
the Pacific Northwest
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BUILDING
REUSE
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K AT H R Y N R O G E R S M E R L I N O
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Building Reuse was supported by a grant from the University of Washington Press
Endowment for Books on the Built Environment, established through the generosity
of Betty Wagner and other donors.
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22 21 20 19 18 5 4 3 2 1
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All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any
form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any
information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
of
solutions from the Pacific Northwest | Includes bibliographical references and index. |
Identifiers: LCCN 2017048939 (print) | LCCN 2017049814 (ebook) | ISBN 9780295742359
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Classification: LCC NA2542.36 (ebook) | LCC NA2542.36 .M465 2018 (print) | DDC
720/.47—dc23
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COVER PHOTOGRAPH: The Kolstrand Building is located just outside the Ballard Avenue
Historic District in Seattle. Challenged with an incredibly tight budget, the building
celebrates the industrial vernacular of the neighborhood while adding additional office
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space, transparency at the street, and lively indoor/outdoor spaces. (Photo by author)
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CONTENTS IX PREFACE
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3 INTRODUCTION
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CHAPTER ONE
PRESERVATION
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CHAPTER TWO
27 CONTEXT
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CHAPTER THREE
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35 METRICS
The Value of Existing Buildings
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CHAPTER FOUR
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CHAPTER FIVE
of the Asian Pacific
69 WASTE American Experience
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PREFACE
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THIS BOOK HAS changed dramatically since I began it several years ago,
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as has the city in which I wrote it. In the past few years alone, Seattle, my
hometown, has been through an intense and dramatic transformation owing
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by the hundreds. This has made the subject of this book even more timely.
While I love well-designed new buildings and realize change is inevitable and
necessary, it is the intersection of old and new in cities that most intrigues
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functional, equitable, and healthy cities. This is where I began with this man-
uscript, and where I continue to pursue my academic inquiries.
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late Professor Astra Zarina and Professor Emerita Trina Deines. I am eternally
grateful to Astra for showing me how to see architecture—particularly, how to
really observe and understand the constructed city as a layered palimpsest,
to
read its past, and appreciate the possibilities it holds for the future. (It cannot
be left unsaid that she also taught me the joy, appreciation, and absolute love
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ville, Virginia, and studied and lived among incredible artifacts of our own
country’s history, which gave me a deep respect for the diverse people who
produced this country’s rich built heritage.
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This book has been, in part, the work of many talented students, assistants,
and colleagues, who gathered research, took photos, and contributed their
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PREFACE
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for this book. I also thank Patrice Frey, Liz Dunn, Holly Taylor, Barbara Cam-
pagna, Jessica Miller, Amanda Reed, and all the students in my Building
Reuse class who, over the years, contributed greatly to the conversation about
sustainable building reuse, preservation, and design. And I thank Professor
Dave Miller, who, as chair of the Department of Architecture, not only sup-
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also was incredibly patient during the production of this book. I extend my
thanks, as well, to Professor Jeffrey Ochsner, a colleague whose dedication to
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preserving the historic fabric of our city remains forever inspirational, and
whose insights, advice, and assistance have been valuable at every turn of my
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his workshop and fix flashing on the roof of our midcentury home, and by
showing me that I could fix nearly anything myself. The book is also dedicated
as
to my generous mother, whose abundant support and love have always been
steadfast and limitless. And I could not ever leave out the best in-laws, Jane
and Ed Merlino, who, as educators themselves, are always interested in and
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loving husband, Steve (the real writer in the family—for I would rather draw),
for, well, everything. And to the other two loves of my life, Maia and Roman,
for being the most intelligent, compassionate, extraordinary children a par-
to
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INTRODUCTION
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a former single-room-
occupancy hotel, now
houses office, retail,
Buildings are one of the largest and
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and entertainment
B U I L D I N G S M AT T E R .
spaces. A new addition most expensive products of human action, both economically
is fastened to the
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older building with and environmentally, and they have an enormous impact on
seismic reinforcements our daily lives. Our buildings provide shelter, places to work,
(which protect the
sleep, eat, and play, and they affect us with their style, form,
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This book is about the value of adapting existing buildings for reuse, and
about the premise that building demolition should be, not the first option
in new development, but a last resort: for once a building is gone, it is gone
forever, and with it goes its history, culture, and material value. Defining the
effect of buildings, Winston Churchill said, “We shape our buildings, and
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afterwards our buildings shape us.” At the core of his message is the value that
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buildings bring to us. Buildings are the vessels that contain the narratives
of our lives, and the places we inhabit meaningfully are the ones we return
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to over and over. The vast majority of buildings we use daily are older ones
that have evolved with use and have acquired meaning over time. Existing
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historic and older buildings, are the physical embodiment of our past and
experiences, and their accumulation of age and memory is a patina we relate
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But how old does a building have to be before it becomes loveable? Answers
to this question vary greatly and are not easily understood. Age has often
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“historic,” and those that are not, are valuable resources in a community.
For the purposes of this book, the terms existing buildings and older build-
ings simply mean “older buildings already in place,” as opposed to “new con-
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struction”; the term historic buildings refers to those that have been officially
designated as such, based on established historic preservation criteria. His-
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toric buildings, of course, are critically valuable to our cultural narrative and
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existing buildings and the tremendous value they embody despite their lack
of formal designation as “historic.”
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artifacts. Rather, they contribute to a larger context in which they play a crit-
ical role in developing the vitality and character of a community. Currently,
we are facing unprecedented growth in regions throughout the United States;
in cities like Austin, San Francisco, Chicago, and Seattle, neighborhoods are
changing rapidly as new buildings are constructed to meet commercial and
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historic buildings and neighborhoods.2 While cities must find ways to accom-
modate growing populations, there is no doubt that the character of commu-
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nities is affected profoundly by the loss of so many older buildings, and that
the historic narrative of these places is quickly disappearing.
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Since the latter half of the twentieth century, when the urban renewal
period in American cities began, there has been an ongoing debate about
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the value of retaining older buildings. Author Jane Jacobs has asserted that
new, large-scale development that replaced richly textured blocks of small,
mixed-age buildings with blocks of much larger, new structures drained
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life from neighborhoods spatially, socially, and aesthetically. She also argues
that older buildings provide critical space for a healthy mix of income levels.
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driven research.
However, preserving buildings for their economic, cultural, and histor-
ical characteristics is only one part of the story. Reusing existing buildings
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also makes a major contribution in the fight against climate change, because
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our buildings are artifacts that consume vast amounts of energy and mate-
rials, both in their construction and in their operation. In the past decade, as
reducing our impact on the environment has become more important to us,
to
the construction market has transformed: a 2015 report shows that more than
53 percent of architectural firms in the United States are building “green.”
This is a 40 percent increase over 2012, and a proportion that will continue to
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buildings are the greatest contributors to climate change globally. In the
United States alone, the construction and operation of buildings are, together,
responsible for 71–76 percent of all electricity consumption,5 41 percent of all
sources of energy use,6 and 3 billion tons of raw material consumption: 40
percent of raw stone, gravel, sand, and steel, and 25 percent of virgin wood.7
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ings result in the production of 48 percent of all carbon (CO2) emissions.9 The
construction, demolition, and ongoing operation of buildings constitute a
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critical part of the problem and, therefore, part of the solution. Given these
consequences for the environment, it is certain that the building industry has
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the potential to make a measured impact by reducing the factors that result
in climate change.
In 2003, architect Ed Mazria challenged architects to embrace green design
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practices with his article “It’s the Architecture, Stupid!” which highlighted
just how great a role buildings play in the environmental crisis. And at the
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less energy by 2010, and to make them carbon neutral by 2030.10 His article
highlighted how much buildings contribute to climate change, just as the
world was beginning to grasp the realities of the changing environment and
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our impact on it. In many ways, the design industry embraced the challenge:
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sustainably produced materials and healthier products are now more com-
mon, innovative design is making systems more efficient, and buildings are
being designed to take advantage of passive energy systems. More stringent
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energy codes require higher efficiencies; and optional guidelines in the form
of green rating systems such as LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environ-
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mental Design) and the Living Building Challenge, among others, encourage
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effective.
However, while advances in green building are important steps in combat-
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ing climate change, there is no question that, over the decades, cycles of unnec-
6 essary demolitions and new “green” construction have been responsible for
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a large portion of the adverse environmental impacts in the world. Although
it has been common since the dawn of building to reuse structures, adaptive
reuse of existing buildings should now be seen as a critical component of sus-
tainable development. New construction—no matter how well buildings per-
form once built—both produces a vast amount of carbon and is responsible
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for the energy and resources consumed in the extraction and manufacture of
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and renewing older buildings, on the other hand, reduces both energy con-
sumption and the waste associated with building construction by reusing the
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of how we think about all buildings must move beyond the traditional idea
of historic importance to encompass environmental value. And while it is
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important to reserve the definition of historic for our most exceptional places,
ordinary buildings, too, hold human and cultural value; they also hold envi-
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ronmental value that we can no longer afford to ignore. Thus, the intersection
of preservation, adaptive reuse, and sustainability has created an important
opportunity.
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it becomes practically impossible to “officially” declare something historic—
and suddenly, the building lacks “value.” For this reason, basing preservation
decisions solely on whether a building has been designated as “historic” sig-
nificantly limits the way we value and preserve existing buildings. In effect,
the word historic saves them, but old or existing does not, and anyone who
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wants to demolish a building can simply argue that the building lacks histor-
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from demolition, but this type of building represents only a small percentage
of designated buildings. As a result, the majority of historic designations are
primarily honorific; and while they provide financial incentives for main-
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taining a building’s character and may give it greater stature and recognition,
they do not protect it from demolition. Second, the historic designation pro-
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are even nominated, and those that win registry constitute a tiny portion of
the buildings that—by the same standards—would qualify. Finally, attaching
value to buildings exclusively because of their notarized historical signifi-
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cance ignores the fact that all buildings inherently hold value as environmen-
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recycle our paper, glass, and metal, we do not apply this ethic to our larg-
est manufactured artifacts, our buildings. Regarding our existing building
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sustainability.
The opportunities that older buildings offer are enormous. Older build-
ings not only have worth as resources of materials but also can be retrofitted
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ings already perform as well as or better than new buildings by many mea-
8 sures. According to a study by the US Energy Information Administration,
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commercial buildings built in the United States before 1920 perform at the
same level as buildings from 2003.11 Other reports have shown that retrofitting
older buildings to the same level as new, green buildings produces substan-
tial environmental savings in the long term. One revealed that it can take up
to eighty years for a new, energy-efficient building to offset the negative envi-
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Demolition, too, has an environmental cost. The past century has seen the
emergence of a building culture that prioritizes tearing down rather than
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reusing and retrofitting. Building demolition rates in our country are stag-
gering. The Brookings Institution reports that between 2004 and 2030, we will
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of the biggest preservation moments in the United States have been the result
of efforts to save and reuse much less monumental buildings, usually in
smaller communities with buildings of little note.14 However, efforts to pre-
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serve public history and the collective memory of a place by adaptively reus-
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ing vernacular buildings are unlikely to occur often, unless we view these
buildings through the lens of history and in relation to sustainability when
gauging their value.
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new versus old, but about establishing a dynamic relationship between the
two, revealing the past without sacrificing the future. Over the past decade,
advances in high-performance, or green, buildings have been numerous but
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top of the green movement’s agenda. In theory, this is slowly changing, but
implementation is slower still. A mix of old and new sustainable buildings 9
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is what creates ideal cities, for as Jane Jacobs writes in The Death and Life of
Great American Cities, cities “must mingle buildings that vary in age and con-
dition, including a good proportion of old ones.”15 Together, historic preser-
vation, adaptive reuse, and thoughtful infill development of new buildings
contribute to a sustainable, diverse, and vibrant community.
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these disciplines offers much that is of use to the others: preservationists have
always promoted the idea that the repair and maintenance of buildings, and
the application of conservation techniques, can permit a variety of uses for
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that existing structures can yield a building as creative, sustainable, and suc-
cessful as a new one. William Whyte writes, “Architects and planners like a
blank slate. They usually do their best work, however, when they don’t have
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one. When they have to work with impossible lot lines and bits and pieces
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of space, beloved old eyesores, irrational street layouts and other such con-
straints, they frequently produce the best of their new designs—and the most
neighborly.”16 The generation of architects that saw the emergence of the “Bil-
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bao effect,” and a rise in what Witold Rybczynski calls the favoring of the “glib
and obvious over the subtle and nuanced,” often produces the most interest-
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buildings has never had the same status as the design of new ones. One the-
ory suggests this could stem from the emergence of the architect as single
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most architecture schools do not typically teach renovation, adaptive reuse,
or preservation of building materials as part of a required curriculum, and
students rarely are taught to thoroughly understand how different building
materials and building construction types age, or how to repair them. This
leaves future designers at a strategic disadvantage, since each one of them
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will most likely work on an existing building at some point in her or his pro-
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fessional career. In Why Preservation Matters, Max Page argues that schools
of architecture need to embrace preservation and adaptive reuse, and he
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emphasizes that “until architecture schools demand that students study the
principles and practices of historic preservation, and until they shift their
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orientation so most classes are focused around adaptation, reuse, and addi-
tions to historic structures, their dedication to ‘sustainability’ will be empty
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rhetoric.”18
Existing buildings offer significant opportunities for the future of sustain-
ability. If architects, builders, and developers are to claim green status, they
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must embrace the reuse of older buildings as a creative endeavor that is equal
to, and in many cases preferable to, new building design. Through the sus-
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servation. Building upon our historic and cultural past by reimagining exist-
ing buildings is critical to promoting cultural continuity and our connections
with our past, for our future. By redesigning buildings to be more efficient
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ment and preserve these structures for generations to come. With good design
and a new environmental ethic of reuse, older and historic buildings can be
perceived not as targets for demolition but as sites ripe for reinvention.
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NOTES
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1 Stewart Brand, How Buildings Learn: What Happens after They’re Built (New York: Viking
Penguin, 1994).
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2 Emily Badger, “Who’s Really Moving Back into American Cities,” Washington Post, April 1,
2016.
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3 Harvey M. Bernstein, “World Green Building Trends: Business Benefits Driving New and
Retrofit Market Opportunities in Over 60 Countries,” in Smart Market Report: Design and
Construction Intelligence, ed. McGraw-Hill Construction (Bedford, MA: McGraw Hill Con-
struction, 2015).
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4 National Aeronautics and Space Administration, “NASA, NOAA Data Show 2016 Warmest
Year on Record Globally,” press release, January 18, 2017, www.nasa.gov/press-release
/nasa-noaa-data-show-2016-warmest-year-on-record-globally. 11
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5 US Energy Information Administration, Annual Energy Review 2011 (Washington, DC: US
Department of Energy, 2012).
6 US Department of Energy, Buildings Energy Data Book 2011 (Washington, DC: US Depart-
ment of Energy, 2012).
7 US Environmental Protection Agency, “Buildings and the Environment: A Statistical Sum-
mary,” in Greenbuilding (2009), https://archive.epa.gov/greenbuilding/web/pdf/gbstats.
pdf; US Environmental Protection Agency, “Municipal Solid Waste in the United States: 2010
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9 Green Building Workgroup of the EPA, Buildings and the Environment: A Statistical Sum-
mary (Washington, DC: US Environmental Protection Agency, 2009).
10 Edward Mazria, “It’s the Architecture, Stupid!” Solar Today 17, no. 3 (May–June 2003): 48.
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12 Michael Powe, Mark Huppert, and James Lindberg, Older, Smaller, Better: Measuring How
the Character of Buildings and Blocks Influences Urban Vitality, ed. Preservation Green Lab
(Seattle: National Trust for Historic Preservation, 2014).
13 Arthur C. Nelson, Towards a New Metropolis: The Opportunity to Rebuild America (Washing-
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16 William Hollingsworth Whyte, The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces (Washington, DC: Con-
servation Foundation, 1980).
17 Witold Rybczynski, “The Bilbao Effect: Public Competitions Don’t Necessarily Produce the
as
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