Recycling Buildings and Code for Sustainability Homes and Materials

October 12, 2007 · Filed Under Architecture Rumbling · 1 Comment
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Recycling Buildings and Sustainability

“What makes a building come to be loved?” according to Stewart Brand, age is what makes a building come to be loved. If, by age, a building is loved, then the best option in preserving these historical buildings are adaptation and recycling.

The idea of adaptation and recycling of buildings is not new, with the dilapidation of natural resources such as petroleum, couple with global warming, adaptation instead of demolition has become the preferable choice. Building adaptation is about controlling change in the context of the functional and physical attributes of existing buildings.

It is based on the premise that buildings are not static in a use over their service life. For instant an abandon Church can be converted into an office and vice versa. Even within the same use classification, the level of activity or intensity of occupancy is unlikely to remain constant over the building’s whole existence. For example, the use of a detached occupied by a family of five will change even within one generation. As the children grow up and move out either to find work or go to college, one or more parts of the dwelling tends to become underused or used for other activities.

Is recycling of buildings a sustainable strategy?

Recycling Buildings and Sustainability panda logo

Is recycling buildings a sustainable strategy? Is it a desirable enterprise?

Most building adaptation is a sustainable strategy, the creation of materials required the burning of fossil fuel, every piece of lumber that was cut and transported use energy indirectly, for as long as the building stands, the energy remains there, serving a useful purpose for many more years.

On the other hand, demolishing a building would causes loss of embodied energy, but, this does not means all building adaptation is a sustainable strategy or worthwhile.

Some dilapidated buildings are best demolished to make way for more suitable and environmentally friendly structure. By keeping certain older buildings, we have to weigh the opportunity cost of that building not being next generation green tech. It uses more energy. It uses more precious water. It’s unhealthier on the interior and it requires constant repairs and maintenance.

Therefore it is important to weigh the opportunity cost of keeping an out-of-date building, including the requirements to bring it up to green par.

Having said that recycling building is a sustainable strategy, have you ever wonder why? Why should we car about recycling and sustainability?

It is hard to convince a person on environmental issues with words, movies and animated slides are the best form of media – An Inconvenient Truth. Watch the movie! Personally, I believe every soul has the duty to protect the environment and conserve energy.

Cheap, abundant petroleum that has sent the global economy whizzing along is coming to an end, the world’s oil production, having grown exuberantly for more than a century, will peak and begin to decline.

And then it really will be all downhill. The price of oil will increase drastically. Major oil-consuming countries will experience crippling inflation, unemployment and economic instability. Some critics even predicted a world recession if oil price hits $100 per barrel, in case you’re wondering, oil price per barrel is hovering at $80 per barrel, 5 years ago it was $25 per barrel.

oil price sustainability prediction chart global

In conclusion, we are clearly entering a very different period for global energy markets and relations. Everyone, including architects should do their part in solving and reducing our reliance on fossil fuel. Two prominent architects that I know of are pioneers in the field of sustainable architecture – Ken Yeang and Glen Murcutt.