Conference Presentation

The Sustainable Divide: Conflict of Preservation and Adaptive Sustainable Design Kristen Bender Rhode Island School of Design

ABSTRACT There is an ongoing struggle between preservation and adaptive reuse in the modern design field today. Preservation as a movement is decaying, and instead adaptive strategies are becoming more successful to keep the historical integrity, and also allow future adaptability of the building life.

The reality of the ongoing conflict between preservation and a more green, adaptable design strategy can currently not be resolved, but there have been steps made by the federal government to try to alleviate this struggle. But with the new possibilities and guidelines comes a greater need to plan, understand, and engineer projects that balance modern energy efficiency with the goals of historic preservation. The struggle comes down to two extremely

differing ideologies: one that sees history as a freeze frame in time, and one that sees it as an ongoing change. It is

also not only the movement itself but also the individual historians, architects, interior architects, and preservationists that are divided:

between those that believe in preventing change, and those who know as Plato does that “Nothing endures but change.” With the continued inability to change with the time

of the building and the people within, the preservation movement will die out instead of becoming a lifelong adaptive reuse strategy to reusing existing buildings. As Darwin states, “It is not the

strongest of the species that survives, but the one most adaptable to change”

ORIGINS

CHANGE IN FUNCTION

THEORY - 1800s

Eugène Viollet-le-Duc believed in restoration as imitation and reconstruction in the style of the original. He argued that “the

best way to preserve a building is to find a use for it, and then to satisfy so well the needs dictated by that use that there will never be any further need to make any further changes in the building”. Memory over History.

VS Ruskin and his pupil William Morris

found it “Impossible, as

impossible as to raise the dead, to restore anything that has ever been great or beautiful in architecture” and instead of pristine new restoration they favored regular care and maintenance to ensure the preservation of historic buildings. The “age” of the building is a very important aspect of this theory. It is in the walls that show passing of humanity.

NOTRE DAME CATHEDRAL

ANOTHER APPROACH - 1900s

Alois Riegl, known as a pioneer of formal analysis, ascribes this conflict in theories to the different values their colleagues attribute to historic icons. Riegl classifies and distinguishes different types of values which he generally grouped as commemorative values

(including age-value, historical value and intentional commemorative value) as opposed to present-day values

(including use-value, art-value and newness-value). By including the use-value in his assessment of monuments, he recognized reuse of historic buildings as an intrinsic part of modern conservation.

WHY DO WE REUSE BUILDINGS?

Many of the buildings are kept because of the historical context of the neighborhood, financial gains, or to keep the character and memory of the building itself.

Within the reuse of these projects, there are ongoing conversations about the struggle between preservation and sustainable adaptive regenerative design. One essay terms this battle as, “The promise

and the paradox of conservation�.

Conflicting views and ideologies about the reuse of existing

buildings is just one reason among many that this argument between replication of history versus re-adaptation continually occurs.

WHAT ARE KEY POINTS FOR SUSTAINABILITY?

1. The building should have a long life (i.e. Durability and future design for durability) 2. It should have low energy consumption (i.e. Thermally efficient) 3. It should be wind and watertight 4. It should provide a secrut and healthy indoor environment (i.e. Comfortable)

5. It should be a loose fit (i.e. Adaptability)

WHAT IS ADAPTABILITY?

The quality or potential of being adaptable, fitted to the conditions of the environment, the capacity to be modified by circumstances--the capacity of buildings

to accommodate change.

Key points that must always be fulfilled: 1. flexibility 2. convertibility 3. expandability 4. durability 5. future design for durability

THEN, WHAT IS ADAPTIVE REUSE?

‘remodeling’, ‘retrofitting’, ‘conversion’,‘adaptation’, ‘reworking’, ‘rehabilitation’ or ‘refurbishment’– includes that the

Adaptive

Reuse

–

also

called

function is the most obvious change, but other alterations may also be made to the building itself such as the circulation route, the orientation, the relationships between spaces; additions may be built and other areas may be demolished.

WHY IS ADAPTIVE REUSE RELEVANT?

99% of the U.S. building stock are buildings that are already built or just being completed.

As the world faces a reduction in overall ecological resources, the existing building stock represents the largest financial, physical, and cultural asset in the industrialized world.

10% improved space utilization 10% fewer buildings needed, 10% longer use It also allows for a reduction of environmental impact. Along with the slower economy and historic and sustainable tax breaks, adaptive reuse has a strong case for being the most efficient way of designing.

PRESERVATION IN AMERICA

“Preservation is not the enemy of modernity, but actually one of its inventions”

-- Rem Koolhaus

PENN STATION

Penn Station, which had great historical significance, was demolished without public consent. It caused American society to recognize that many of the buildings that have made American history needed to be saved.

PRESERVATION STANCE

Preserving history is to control it,

and the people that could change it “Conservation is a creative process, which allows for a building to change over time, and is concerned with the problems and modes of combining the old with the new.

Currently, the practice of conservation has turned into a form of ‘still-preservation’. The belief is that a building can and should maintain its likeness in perpetuity in order to preserve its heritage. The past is frozen into still shots.”

-Frederica Goffi

ARGUMENT OVER SUSTAINABILITY

Neither groups can agree on a definition for sustainability.

The fundamentals of each way to renew a building comes down to the differing views and ideologies.

Main contentions for constant arguments regarding details are windows, insulation, facades, and proper roofing conditions. Many preservationists make the case that window replacement should be an absolute last resort, believing that architectural details such as dividing light should always be maintained as originals, and that window profiles are so important to a building’s architectural authenticity that they must not be altered. Many are so adamant about replicating or maintaing this detail that they will openly go against sustinability and adaptability if it suits their needs. According to the Whole Building Design Guide (WBDG) by the National Institute of Building Sciences, “LEED fails to acknowledge that historic windows are important features and that their energy efficiency can be upgraded.�15 Maintaining facadism only ends up hurting the building if the materials are not in adequate condition!

DIFFERING IDEOLOGIES

History is frozen in time, therefore buildings should be frozen in the time they were built to be shown to later generationskeep in new pristine condition.

VS History is an every changing status, therefore buildings should be able to adapt through this change in time, show a palimpset of events which allows for greater understanding, capabilities, and longevity for the architecture.

CAN COMPROMISE HAPPEN?

CAN COMPROMISE HAPPEN?

YES

AND WHO CAN MAKE A CHANGE?

Struggles for major change usually begin at a very local level and with few grand ambitions in the form of education, active participation, and time.

Vladmir Lenin urges us to understand that every struggle by ordinary people against the system, no matter how modest, is a school for people to learn about their own potential.

It is also the individual historians, architects, interior architects, government officials, educators, and preservationists that are divided: between those that believe in preventing change, and those who know as Plato does that “Nothing endures but change.� These individuals ideals would

need to shift towards a compromise.

185 POST BUILDING

1906 - Earthquake 1950’s - Metal panels were added over the original facade 20th century - Adapted by two different architects.

ALL INCLUSIVE DESIGN!

WHEN WILL THE DIVIDE END?!?!

Ideals can shift. Laws can change.

When there is a compromise on a new, adapted definition of preservation which includes the history of how people live in the spaces they inhabit, from birth to death of a building.

This form of palimpsest can become the foundation for a hybrid approach to the renovation of existing buildings.

“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, but the one most adaptable to change�