We routinely see buildings that could be renovated or retrofitted torn down. Those buildings often have historic value that goes beyond a price-per-square-foot. The National Trust for Historic Preservation has just published an extensive study that compares the avoided impacts of renovation versus new construction across several climate and building types:
The Greenest Building: Quantifying the Environmental Value of Building Reuse
In almost every scenario, renovation is the best option.
DFW GREEN SCHEDULE OF EVENTS
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
This study has reshaped my opinions. I had thought that kbtu per square foot values for embodied energy and operational energy would pretty much sum up if a new building is green or not. Now, I think how long a building lasts and how it ages play a much larger roles. For instance, curtain wall systems can't be easily repaired by local staff and seem to go bad all at once. You could say they are less resilient than punched openings. The evidence seems to be all around me in the West End. Re-skinning a mid-60s tower past its prime doesn't make business sense. A turn of the century building may need half its windows replaced and the other half fixed, but that work can be phased or incorporated into a deferred maintenance package.
ReplyDelete