{"id":278,"date":"2011-08-31T00:11:23","date_gmt":"2011-08-31T00:11:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/homeimprovementblogs.com\/?p=278"},"modified":"2011-08-24T11:22:28","modified_gmt":"2011-08-24T11:22:28","slug":"the-ultimate-in-green-construction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/homeimprovementblogs.com\/hg-blog\/the-ultimate-in-green-construction\/","title":{"rendered":"The ultimate in ‘green’ construction"},"content":{"rendered":"
What’s the greenest way to build? Using natural, renewable\u00a0 resources? Using salvaged building materials? Or using the same stuff you’ve\u00a0 always used, but which some corporate PR firm has managed to repackage as\u00a0 “green”?<\/div>\n
\n

These are all ways to profess greenness, some effective,\u00a0 some merely gestural. But by far the greenest way to build is to adapt\u00a0 structures that already exist — and that’s one avenue in which we Americans\u00a0 still fall woefully short.<\/p>\n

We are, after all, a young nation built largely from\u00a0 scratch, and we consider it normal for our built environment to be constantly\u00a0 in flux. Here, it’s common for buildings to be destroyed after 50, 30 or even\u00a0 10 years of use — and in the face of rapid social change, the expected life of\u00a0 new buildings will likely get shorter rather than longer.<\/p>\n

One study has pegged the average lifespan of American\u00a0 buildings at just shy of 50 years. Compare this to the Old\u00a0\u00a0 World, where a building’s life is measured in centuries rather\u00a0 than decades. The average life of an English building, for example, is 132\u00a0 years. The typical lifespan of buildings on mainland Europe\u00a0 is probably even longer if we discount the effects of two world wars.<\/p>\n

There was a time when Americans, too, built with permanence\u00a0 in mind. But no more. Our modern obsession with speed and short-term profit\u00a0 leads us to build quickly and on the cheap to ensure the quickest monetary\u00a0 return possible. Such thinking leads to a vicious cycle of wastefulness:\u00a0 Because permanence is considered irrelevant, newer buildings naturally wear out\u00a0 quickly, often to be demolished and replaced by structures that are even\u00a0 shoddier and more temporary. It’s no help to claim that these new buildings are\u00a0 green, as their construction is an unnecessary waste in the first place.<\/p>\n

Preserving and reusing older, well-built existing\u00a0 structures, on the other hand, is the ultimate expression of true green design,\u00a0 as it requires relatively little additional expenditure of energy compared to\u00a0 new construction. But there are other, subtler reasons to preserve what already\u00a0 exists.<\/p>\n

It’s generally true that buildings predating World War II\u00a0 are more opulent than their modern counterparts, making use of materials that,\u00a0 due to depletion or economics, are no longer part of the building canon. But\u00a0 what is seldom appreciated is that such buildings also embody an enormous\u00a0 storehouse of labor — much of it of a kind our society can no longer afford.\u00a0 Many once-ubiquitous building trades have all but vanished over the last\u00a0 century — from stonemasons to stained-glass makers, from plasterers to gilders\u00a0 — and the fruits of their labors remain in every extant building, essentially\u00a0 frozen in time.<\/p>\n

These skills won’t be coming back, except in their current\u00a0 status as boutique trades carrying astronomical costs. Hence, destroying an old\u00a0 building doesn’t just squander precious physical resources; it also negates\u00a0 forever a huge investment of skilled work that’s no longer affordable and in\u00a0 some cases no longer even obtainable. Obliterating this legacy of the past —\u00a0 the ultimate nonrenewable resource — is more tragic than the waste of any\u00a0 precious material.<\/p>\n

Read Arrol Gellner’s blog at arrolgellner.blogspot.com<\/a>,\u00a0 or follow him on Twitter: @ArrolGellner<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"reddit\"<\/a>\"pinterest\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What’s the greenest way to build? Using natural, renewable\u00a0 resources? Using salvaged building materials? Or using the same stuff you’ve\u00a0 always used, but which some corporate PR firm has managed to repackage as\u00a0 “green”? These are all ways to profess greenness, some effective,\u00a0 some merely gestural. But by far the greenest way to build is to adapt\u00a0 structures that already exist — and that’s one avenue in which we Americans\u00a0 still fall woefully short. We are, after all, a young nation built largely from\u00a0 scratch, and we consider it normal for our built environment to be constantly\u00a0 in flux. Here, <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":187,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[88],"tags":[63],"class_list":["post-278","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-green-building","tag-green"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/homeimprovementblogs.com\/hg-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/homeimprovementblogs.com\/hg-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/homeimprovementblogs.com\/hg-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/homeimprovementblogs.com\/hg-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/187"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/homeimprovementblogs.com\/hg-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=278"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/homeimprovementblogs.com\/hg-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/homeimprovementblogs.com\/hg-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=278"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/homeimprovementblogs.com\/hg-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=278"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/homeimprovementblogs.com\/hg-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=278"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}