welcome to the hspvcpln742 blog, everyone... look forward to reading what you have to say! randy
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Greeting 742ers,
Was great to meet all of you last week, and I look forward to joining you again a little later this semester. In the meantime, I'll be sharing interesting things I find in the sustainability/preservation realm via this blog (and the Trust's blog, PreservationNation http://blogs.nationaltrust.org/preservationnation/).
Top on my list today is a fantastic new website with an embodied energy calculator -- check it out at http://www.thegreenestbuilding.org/
This website -- and the associated blog -- were put together by planners in Highland Park Illinois who are concerned with the "Teardowns" phenomena plaguing that area. Plug in the square footage of a building, the type of building (house, office building, etc.) and voila – an estimate of embodied energy.
What exactly will it mean to “go green” with preservation, in terms of technologies used and the money and effort that goes into such a project? The “green” movement is fairly modern; are there materials and processes that can be adapted to the preservation world? The idea of “going green” looks like sleek steel, brick, and glass structures of interesting conceptual spaces and forms (at least in my experience), however, historic structures do not always appear cohesive and can lose their appeal with misused though well-meaning technology installed. In terms of aesthetics, can we “go green” and still uphold an historic appearance? Or does this call for an end to the debate of whether to juxtapose or replicate, siding on the juxtaposition end of the argument? And often full rehabilitation projects can cost a great deal more in terms of getting an existing building to function the way modern businesses or homeowners desire then to just build new. Perhaps in the long run the cost of building new is much more, but is “going green” with an historic structure just as if not more energy-efficient then “going green” with a completely new structure? Maybe it is, I’m not sure, but when preservation projects can begin to cost several millions to get it to “shine like new”, is the money and energy better spent on the truly new, or are we saving money and energy by saving what we have? I’m certainly not advocating for new “green” construction rather than “green” preservation, but I wonder what “green” preservation looks like and if it truly costs less. Can the everyday homeowner afford it and will it fit in with the rest of the structure or will we be resorting to solar panels on slate roofs and rotating blinds on century-old double hung windows?
Richard Moe’s points regarding ‘sustainable stewardship’ concisely summarize the hypocrisy that is dominating the American housing market. As he points out, the recent discussions involving sustainability and green building methods are angled toward the promotion of new development and construction; as a result, structures continue to be built despite a growing collection of vacant shells throughout the nation. At a time when the domestic housing market is suffering, many fail to acknowledge the surplus of structures that are perfectly inhabitable. In my opinion, the recent housing trends have gone like this: As is the case with the majority of metropolitan areas in the country, one’s social status is largely dependent on appearances – notably the size/style of your house and the model car you drive. John Q. Public and his family live in a house for a few years while he and his wife attempt to climb the corporate ladder. After some time, the kids get older and the family decides to relocate to a town with a stronger school district; unhappy with the similarity between their current home and those on the market, they decide to build a better structure (McMansion?) instead. This trend is spread throughout the nation and continues throughout their lives, even reflecting on the cars they drive and the consumer products they own. Cars, for instance, are often leased or owned for 2-3 years before being traded in for credit towards another new car; at a time when the economy is nearing recession (and not to get too off topic), keeping an investment (the vehicle) that immediately depreciates by 50% the moment it leaves the lot for a fifth of its intended service life is the epitome of wastefulness. The question I raise is how can we halt this continuing trend? One would think the current state of the market would wake people up to their inefficient ways, but that hardly seems to be the case. I would love to see the government (state or federal) step in and begin to limit the amount of development while promoting rehabilitation of existing structures (laced with economic incentives). I believe that it is an incredibly viable option, but it needs to be addressed now while the market is suffering. What troubles me is the eagerness of the general public to embrace such a movement; so often do people dream of living in ‘their house’, a home they dreamt up and can uniquely lay claim to. Will people readily come to grips with the fact that we all must halt our wasteful ways of living, beginning with where we live and what we live in? Sure, there is precedent; young musicians and artists regularly populate slumping neighborhoods, only to revive the places for eventual gentrification. Maybe we’re relegated to forming street teams whose mission is to frequent college campuses, art galleries and coffee shops, attempting to convince the creative populous to become the catalyst. Regardless, Moe raises a number of compelling issues and statistics that should help change people’s perceptions of the term ‘sustainability’.
Addressing the concerns of climate change and how historic preservation can mitigate climate change is a critical component of our field today. Moe’s cited statistics on building and waste in the United States effectively justifies why historic preservation should spearhead the search for possible solutions and the facts are of such significance that they should be considered by experts in all fields. However, I question Mr. Moe’s focus on federal action and national policy as the primary method for impacting climate change and changing development patterns. Moe's belief in the effectiveness of policy change seems similar to when our field championed federal tax incentives as a means to save historic structures. Did tax incentives make people recognize the importance of historic structures or was it a superficial effort because it was concerned with monetary rather than social incentives? Was this an effective long-term approach that strengthened the field? Similarly, will routing efforts to instate federal policies on building practices spawn environmental responsibility? While national policy and federal incentives would certainly provide important guidelines, I am not convinced it would serve to accomplish the most important thing of all: to make people care about the issues. Moe states that too many people “don’t see” the connection between poor development habits and climate change, but I wonder if the majority just does not care enough to change their habits. When the environmentally responsible efforts of hundreds of people are undercut by the legally and ethically questionable actions of small groups at private, federal, state, and municipal levels (for example raising entire city blocks for one company’s building), I wonder if focusing on changing individual ethoses would be more effective than implementing policy in the effort to change development practices. So I suppose my question is this: Does policy change ethos or does ethos change policy?
Richard Moe’s speech “Sustainable Stewardship: Historic Preservation’s Essential Role in Fighting Climate Change” is a good introduction to the areas in which the missions of historic preservation and those of sustainable development overlap. However, as a speech presented to a wide audience, there exist inevitable gaps in the logic of the arguments presented leaving it open to perhaps too easy criticism.
Moe never addresses one of the primary reasons why developers shy away from retrofitting, adapting, or renovation older buildings: there is significantly more risk involved in the projects. While you can accurately budget for the construction of a new building, a common real estate development mantra when considering an older building is that you cannot predict costs because you “never know what is behind those walls.” Namely, a building which initially appears to be in good condition might have significantly higher renovation costs than previously expected. This risk causes many developers to opt not to engage in such projects. While the historic renovation credits can be used to pad the risk factor it is not sufficient to assuage the concerns of many in the field.
Moe also does not make any distinction between the preservation of buildings of historical importance and the preservation of any existing building, just because it already exists. If a historical preservation agency takes on this wide of a position, it risks undercutting and overshadowing its core beliefs. Essentially the ending argument is that all new is bad and that might give unnecessary ammunition to opponents of the real mission of a historic preservation agency. It would serve Moe better to more clearly articulate his position.
Also not addressed is the potential conflict between the preservation of an existing building just because it exists and the potential for the development of a new building on that same site which might potentially be better suited to the principles of sustainable development as a whole. Is the preservation of a three-story building, of no significant historical value in an urban location well served by public transportation, truly a better decision than the construction of a larger multifamily unit, designed to the best standards of energy efficiency, which would allow for housing families that might otherwise have to find housing in the suburban sprawl? Low density urban housing preserved just because it already exists might not be the best choice in that scenario.
There is no doubt that there is excessive waste in the development industry and that existing buildings are torn down which could and often should have been preserved and retrofitted in order to build new constructions that are often of substandard design and quality. However, the argument for the shared goals of historic preservation and sustainable development needs to be honed to better protect it from the easy attacks currently afforded to naysayers in order to meet wider reaching acceptance and bring to the public attention the ways in which historic preservation deserves a more public role in the sustainable development movement.
Richard Moe’s speech raises critical issues facing preservation today, but up until Patrice’s lecture and Moe’s speech, I was unaware of the actual magnitude and precariousness of our situation and of how acutely crucial concrete (as in tangible) sustainability is for architecture and preservation. Until recently, “sustainability” and “green” building have been presented to us (as preservationists) by and large as abstract concepts and as universal ideals to strive toward, but Moe’s statistics and physical data are staggering. Moe gave this speech one month ago and presents these figures as if few have heard them before. If preservationists and advocates of sustainability are just beginning to realize the criticality of the state of our world, how long will it take for those outside of the field to catch up?
Efforts at the state and local level must continue, but we cannot hope to spur national and federal agenda and legislation without the “fostering” and “stewardship” to which Moe refers. I believe that advocacy and education are most critical to the success of sustainability. Not only the legislators, but even more importantly the public should know that it is more wasteful to tear down and rebuild than to preserve, that “buildings constructed before 1920 are actually more energy-efficient than buildings built at any time afterwards,” and that new suburbs and sprawl are not our best and only option. Moe mentions recycling newspapers and bottles and cans – how long did it take for the general public to accept recycling as necessary practice? It will take efforts exponentially more costly, widespread, compelling and hard-hitting to convince the public to recycle a building. And even with the full knowledge of its benefits and the prevalence of recycling plastic, aluminum, and paper, some still do not participate in what is slowly becoming a global phenomenon.
In addition to these more general thoughts, I also will reiterate my concern with the buildings Moe mentioned that were built between the 1950s and 1980s. As of yet, there has been no solution to the problem of these structures put forward by the National Trust or USGBC or by an organization like the DOCOMOMO. I believe that a creative response to these buildings will be most essential as they are the least sustainable.
I question whether it is wise for preservation to continue to play "follow the leader" in terms of societal trends. As Moe adroitly points out in his first few paragraphs, the emphasis of preservation has changed from that of historical stewardship, to that of economic benefit, to finally being a supporter and "enhancer" of social values. Now, preservation must again change its purpose and focus on new catchall buzzword of "sustainability." If the "industry" of preservation is to move in this direction, it can also be loosely concluded that many projects will have to be sold on the basis of their "sustainability." And the difficult part, and the part that Moe does not address, is that many buildings are unsustainable, simply because they can not be adapted to current uses or altered by "green" technology. What then happens to these buildings that cannot adjust to preservation's current lockstep mentality?
Further, Moe's definition of preservation sustainability is also to this reader, exceedingly limited. Moe's goes to great length to explain how the historic buildings in most respects represent the greenest alternative to new construction. However, a stronger point could have been made in that preservation is NOT just about buildings, but the preservation of landscapes, open space, working farmlands, all work towards ensuring a more sustainable environment.
Moe begins his speech with a simple definition of preservation as “having the good sense to hold on to things that are well designed, that link us with our past in a meaningful way, and that have plenty of good use left in them.” From a preservation standpoint this definition can both help push the adaptive reuse of historic buildings and welcome the destruction of historic resources. While I agree with Moe that the main way out of the current environment crisis is through the conservation and reuse of existing building resources I feel that his desire to have the vast majority of the existing and historic buildings reused could be interpreted as gut and redesign the interior, leaving only the exterior shell of the historic building. I do believe that all historic buildings can be “greened” and reused in a way that will capture their embodied energy and breathe new life into the building and surrounding area without sacrificing the historic value of the building. Moe states that the “reuse” has not made its way into the green building lexicon, however, LEED-NC does give designers the opportunity to earn up to 3 credits under Materials and Resources depending on what percentage of an existing building is reused. Within his plea for the reuse of existing structures he speaks little about the preservation of cultural heritage. Currently LEED-NC does not require or recommend that a preservationist be hired or consulted during the reuse of an existing building. While it would be my hope that an architect engaged in the reused of such a building would be sensitive to the existing historic fabric, my only concern would be that cultural heritage could be lost if they were not. While working with the USGBC the National Trust should ensure that preservationists are consulted so that buildings with historic value are reused in a way that does not negate their historic integrity. I agree that the type of thinking and building that brought the world into its current state will not be able to successfully bring it out of the environmental crisis it currently faces. Moe expresses concern over the fact that under LEED standards new developments can be considered “green” even when they are constructed in places where there is no existing infrastructure, however, without the LEED guidelines the new developments would be even less sustainable. While the LEED standards are often mocked as a numbers game, by creating a set of guidelines that are both helpful to the environment and attractive to financially vested parties, the USGBC has helped sustainability gain momentum in the building industry. While LEED does not tell an architect where to locate interior walls or how to design the programmatic layout of a building it does give easily implementable alternatives that will benefit the client, occupants, and environment in a way that standard construction will not.
It is refreshing to see the National Trust for Historic Preservation recognize and take on an issue that meaningfully connects the benefits of preservation to issues of broad public concern. As Richard Moe states, by promoting preservation as a “key component” of sustainable development, preservationists can recast the social, economic and environmental value of preservation in light of the national conversation about climate change. As Moe notes, the notion that preservation and sustainability are linked is not a new one to preservationists, but it is a connection that could help build preservation new constituencies, forge coalitions and change public perception of preservation as the realm of stuffy old ladies and iconic buildings.
The quality of our urban environments and the push to sprawl are undeniably two sides of the same coin. Under Moe the NTHP has worked for over a decade to link historic preservation with anti-sprawl movements, in regard mostly to the economic vitality of main street downtowns but also on environmental grounds. By claiming ground under the umbrella of sustainability, the Trust will augment this work by helping quantify and qualify the environmental benefits of preservation, as well as find ways to make smart compromises about green technologies. By understanding preservation through the prism of sustainability, common old buildings can be seen as vessels of embodied energy and our dominant land-use patterns can be seen as wasteful and reckless.
To refocus from historicity as the dominant value of old buildings, and to consider the value of these buildings as ecological as well as economic is to make an important shift in preservation thought that might extend the appeal of preservation as a movement. Preservationists and environmentalists have not always been successful in uniting to address shared concerns. In fact, they often are forced to compete for the same sources of funding to do what is essentially, critically related work. Consequently provincialism still divides the two movements in many places. This makes the Trust’s Sustainability Initiative all the more important because it provides common cause for people concerned about how to build sustainable places.
For those that are interested, here is the link to the Sustainable Sites Initiative that is developing LEED-like certification for landscapes: http://www.sustainablesites.org/index.html There is a preliminary report posted. We just missed the deadline for public review of this preliminary report, but there will be a public review of the revision later this year.
While I would describe my knowledge of green building upon entering this class as vague at best, I would consider myself environmentally aware and of course also have a background in historic preservation. I therefore assumed I had a decent understanding of the connection between sustainability and preservation, but I have to admit that I was shocked by the numerous statistics that Moe cited throughout his speech on Sustainability Stewardship. I now realize that I didn’t truly understand the magnitude of energy consumption issues and that I have a lot to learn about sustainability and preservation.
If an interested preservationist can be relatively uneducated in such issues, what does that mean for the average citizen? What really struck me about Moe’s speech, then, is how far the preservation movement has to go in educating the broader public about sustainability itself, and further, its connection with historic preservation. In my experience, most people outside the preservation field are still stuck on the “little old ladies in white tennis shoes” concept of preservation. Most don’t even seem to realize its connection to conservation/restoration and architecture, never mind a possible connection to environmental responsibility. Further, if successful sustainability projects require not just growth in the green building market, or government sponsored tax incentives, but really an awakening awareness and shift in thinking concerning the environment, how will this be accomplished when the public is likely unaware, or worse, just may not care? In connection with our readings for this week, are most people really willing to sacrifice individually in order to benefit the greater “commons” or community? To echo the sentiments of several other bloggers today, sustainability sadly just may not be a value that most people share.
My feeling is that the only way to really combat this is through more aggressive advocacy and education measures. Moe mentioned outreach to architects, developers, etc., specifically, as well as a useful “best practices” website, but I wonder about more aggressively reaching out to the average citizen too. It’s likely that what most people really need to wake up to the realities of energy consumption and the solutions of sustainability and preservation are straight statistics and examples, such as those provided in Moe’s speech. An idea as simple as the 1980 poster featuring an historic building in the shape of a gas can seems like possibly the best and most concise way to make such a connection for citizens. A message in this form is easily distributed, as well as memorable and easily understood.
Moe touches on a very interesting point when he mentions trends in the preservation field. During the late nineteenth century, when preservation first began to have a presence in America, society placed emphasis on the country’s founding fathers and other great men. Preservation responded to this by focusing on saving and restoring iconic buildings such as Mount Vernon. This trend continued until the mid twentieth century when focus shifted to preserving main streets and defending small towns from strip malls. Preservation appealed to the masses because it could be economically efficient. Today, the trend is all about sustainability. Many different facets of American society are emphasizing the importance of keeping the environment healthy. Preservation has followed and, as Moe promotes in this speech, seeks to play a bigger role in ameliorating the environmental situation.
As far as I observed, Moe does not address or question the concept of sustainability as a trend in preservation. Does preservation always need a motive which appeals to people outside of the field to justify its actions? Are we using environmental concerns as a reason to preserve or are we preserving to address environmental concerns? Maybe the bigger question is can preservation ever stand on its own or does it always need to gain support from trends in society?
In response to Moe's speech, I agree with his main hypothesis about preservation being the first method of sustainability. However, as an architect, I know there are many more factors that determine whether or not preserving a building is sustainable or not. I believe that buildings that meet a certain set of criteria such as historic or cultural significance, but some buildings require much more cost, energy and time to convert into environmentally and socially sustainable buildings. I currently live in a reused garment factory building that is over a hundred years old. I love that it is a reused structure despite the fact that it was reappropriated by a developer who did not take a lot of pains with ensuring that the building was properly conditioned to meet the comfort level standards of domestic living. The central heating and air is a great convenience, but the developer never bothered to properly seal and insulate the building resulting in high energy costs which in turn fall back on the tenant. Preservation seems to really work on a case by case basic, but the lack of regulations in many cases allow for buildings to be reused often without proper attention to reconditioning. Like Moe stated, many buildings from the 20th century were not built with durable materials or they were constructed with experimental measures making it sometimes difficult to preserve. Buildings that contain large amounts of hazardous materials such as asbestos and PVC are not ideal candidates for preservation; nevertheless, I agree with Moe’s position on preserving iconic buildings or significant historical buildings for the sake of “cultural memory.” These structures serve as living histories to educate architects as well as the world, and are just as important on the architectural timeline as the Parthenon or Gothic cathedrals. While Moe’s points are valid and he address some key issues merging the disciplines of sustainability and historic preservation, he remains to be a bit superficial in proposing real strategies to deal with the large amount of buildings that are gradually becoming obsolete.
Moe’s speech on “Sustainable Stewardship” left me with plenty to chew on. I apologize here at the start if my ideas jump around, but there are many things I would like to touch on, and not much space to do it in.
Firstly, in his acceptance speech for the Vincent Scully Prize, it is obvious that Richard Moe could not enter into great depth on the topics of preservation and stability. At times, I had to wonder about statistics he enumerated, although they were presented in a very effective and compelling manner. Clearly Moe knows how to reach an audience, he long ago realized that raw emotion would not always be enough, while impressive statistics often have the force of authority and an indelible “wow” factor. I agree that an emphasis on the economic benefits of preservation and sustainability speaks to a wider audience, including business interests and government officials. This is not to say, however, that Moe left out the social implications of the preservation sustainability movement.
When reading this piece, I related many of Moe’s concepts to experiences in my own life. I felt a particular pang at his mention of Loudoun County, the place where I was born and raised. During my short lifetime, I witnessed the transformation from rural, history-laden lots to new, mass-produced sprawl. I agree with the general idea that many “historic” homes are innately “green.” Until the 1950s, farmhouses in my hometown nestled in hillsides for protection from the weather and naturally cooling, they were oriented to take advantage of southern rays and away from northern gusts. Today, developers build homes without regard to their setting, exposing them to the elements and angling them towards cul-de-sacs instead of the sun.
Several preservation challenges occurred to me throughout the piece. One that stood out was how to offer products that can help make older buildings more energy-efficient without compromising their historic character. I think that preservationists will come up against this argument repeatedly, as it provides a simple way to defeat the cause with practical logistics. In thinking about this, I thought about a townhome I visited in Washington, D.C. over the summer. A new, “green” development firm was eagerly displaying its ability to rehabilitate historic homes in a sustainable, “green” way. The result was impressive and attractive, although it entailed gutting the building, replacing windows, doors, floors, stairs, walls, and all manner of fabric original to the structure’s construction. True, there are many degrees of preservation, and there is not a single model that suits all situations, but I do think preservationists are going to have to acknowledge a certain reality. The simple fact is that there are going to be situations where the preservation movement becomes so caught up in the sustainability movement that preservation will be thrown aside. This is a complex reality, perhaps at this moment the need for sustainability is greater, but I hope that this is not entirely the case.
Moe does a good job of illustrating the changes within the preservation field and how new concepts of sustainable development can be integrated. A few of his comments stood out in particular.
He points out the innate sustainable qualities of historic materials. While not always energy efficient by contemporary standards, many thick-walled historic buildings utilize their embedded thermal mass to reduce energy costs. Light wells, porches, and large windows provide exposure to natural sunlight and air ventilation. Also, the durable nature of their materials and construction technique make them a desirable candidate for operation and reuse.
Over half of nonresidential building stock today was built between the 1950s and 1980s, usually with experimental materials and techniques, and without the intention to last longer than one generation. Despite such hurdles, these buildings can be rehabilitated and reestablished as useful and desirable components of the built environment. It would completely negate the ideas of sustainability to ignore this building stock as historic by destroying it in favor of new construction.
Most distressing about his speech however is the unsustainable nature of much of today’s development policies. Beyond the facilitation of rural sprawl, the lack of coherent and cohesive policy results in fractured understanding of sustainable principles and possible solutions. As Moe says, we need a federal policy that stops rewarding unsustainable development. I agree with his push for incentives that encourage reuse and energy upgrades in existing buildings. Instead of promoting new construction that meets new sustainability standards, policy at all levels should help advance initiatives for use of older buildings.
With their Sustainability Initiative, The National Trust is enabling preservationists to participate in the outreach efforts to inform and facilitate change.
Richard Moe presents a well-organized, compelling argument for preservation's role as a linchpin in addressing Global Warming. Aside from the data-driven arguments presenting the eminent wasefullness of tearing down structures as opposed to preserving them, he makes an important argument that preservation gives us a tangible connection to the past that is vital to a sustainable community. It is this aspect of his speech which I wish to address.
I believe that a further point that could be added to Moe's speech is that preservation gives us a window into techniques our forefathers used to live comfortably without many of the unsustainable technologies we use today. Traditional neighborhoods, for example, were built for walking. The houses were located close together, mixed uses ensured close proximity to retail and a dense fabric of small stores provided easy local shopping for daily needs. If we do not have these neighborhoods to look to as a model, we will never be able to achieve neighborhood sustainability, because big box strip malls and suburban sprawl are clearly not it.
Thus I argue that preservation's role can be expanded to that of the guide towards sustainability. Many of the things preservationists try to conserve are important models of sustainability. When we start to reform our society to become more sustainable, we will need these models and preservationists will be our guides. Preservationists, more than anybody else, know what life was like in the days before many of the technologies that are now creating our global climate crisis existed. If air conditioning becomes prohibitively expensive, preservationists can point to the complex system of porches, verandas, louvers, fans and windows that once cooled houses.
I think Moe has taken an important first step towards highlighting preservation's crucial role in addressing global warming. I suggest he could have gone further, and I hope preservationists continue this movement.
I agree with Moe that “we can’t build our way out of the global warming crisis. We have to conserve our way out of it.” Given the statistics he presents, it seems entirely logical that we should reuse the existing stock of buildings we have rather than waste dwindling resources on constructing new buildings that will take decades to recapture the embodied energy lost through demolition. The adaptive reuse argument is entirely convincing and would persuade even the staunchest of opponents to at least consider recycling a building rather than discarding it.
There is a distinct challenge though in forcefully acting upon the statistics and it’s a matter of perspective really. Getting people of all backgrounds – from residential homeowners to building contractors to federal government officials – requires changing the way people think, and that is a very slow process. What’s more, this effort to change our nation’s psychology also goes up against a very thick and well-ingrained reality that is the core of our nation’s economy and perhaps collective psyche – capitalism and the belief that we can spend our way out of our troubles.
Moe points out that we are trying to solve the problem of greenhouse emissions by constructing more buildings and ignoring those that we have. But what do we when the building industry, including construction and maintenance, accounts for more than 25% of the US GDP? There is an enormous industry of individuals, companies and investments built up behind the built environment. Since more 15% of that quarter amount comes from services – rent and utilities – developers will likely use these figures to support their cause of demolition and construction of newer, more energy-efficient buildings.
There of course are arguments that can be advanced on either side of this debate, but the fact remains that buildings in the US play a significant role in the economic infrastructure and health of our economy. We can already see the widespread effects of the current collapse of the subprime mortgage market. The argument to convince people that our historic buildings are the key to reducing cumulative greenhouse emissions currently seems to be based primarily on science and ethics (however we define ethics), but in order for the building industry as a whole to similarly view the merits of preservation, we could better our case by speaking the language of the economics of the industry. In the end if what we want is for our historic buildings to see new life as the energy-efficient solution for our future, we need to add financial reasoning to our cache of arguments in order to reach those who may be driven more by economics than social or physical incentives.
The presentation given by Moe certainly outlines excellent ways that the field of preservation contributes to the sustainability “movement.” In his speech, Moe focuses primarily on the ecological/environmental aspects of sustainability—especially with regards to energy consumption. This is likely due to environmental issues having the greatest resonance among the public and the one most directly tied to climate change. The link between preservation and sustainable development has existed for some time, but it just has not been framed in a way so as to align itself with the concept of sustainability until recently. Moe acknowledges this fact when he mentions a Preservation Week poster from 1980 which showed a historic building made to resembling a gas can.
Moe states that historic preservation is “the ultimate recycling” when it comes to the built environment and this is true and I believe it is a very valuable argument for future of preservation as it expands the role of preservationists in land use and planning. Furthermore, the concept of sustainability and sustainable development enables preservationists to argue for the reuse and preservation of buildings from a more concrete perspective than the more intangible aesthetic and cultural value perspective that the field has traditionally used to advocate for saving significant buildings and districts. As a profession we possess a cache of knowledge about how best to reuse of existing structures and the numerous benefits of it—and therefore we have been advocating for it for years, but now there is science to back us up.
What surprised me from the speech though was that Moe did not mention the other forms of sustainability—social and economic—much and the way that the field of preservation contributes to those aspects of sustainability as well. While certainly aspects of social sustainability have been addressed in other ways thorough the profession’s advocacy and work in saving places of artistic and historical significance, as sustainability is such an important buzzword in public discourse it would be helpful to articulate the cultural resource work of preservationists in this way. In terms of the economic sustainability, Moe primarily touches on this when looking over the evolution of the field and he spoke about briefly about the economic impact of historic preservation, yet there is much more to that in terms of jobs per dollar and the impact that can have on local economies.
Acknowledging the inherent connections between sustainable development and historic preservation and articulating it well to the public is a significant opportunity for growing the profession’s relevancy and changing some of the public’s perception of the profession as well, that by looking at saving elements of the past., we are contributing to a better future. However, we must also be wary of focusing too much on a single aspect of the sustainability framework, e.g. ecological, at the expense of either social or economic sustainability.
I am just about caught up since deciding last week that I did want to take this course...
Personally, I am so glad to see preservation as sustainable stewardship in the limelight. The whole reason I chose to pursue a dual degree in planning and preservation was to work in the field of environmental planning and growth management in older communities. I've always been intrigued by the Main Street Program as a means of stimulating reinvestment in existing communities and reusing existing infrastructure as an alternative to greenfield development. That said, I agree with many of the points that Moe makes in this speech.
There are 2 passages in particular that I think warrant longer discussion...
PAGE 1, PARAGRAPH 3:
"...preservation is simply having the good sense to hold on to things that are well designed, that link us with our past in a meaningful way, and that have plenty of good use left in them."
Does it matter that something be "well designed"? If we only preserve the "well designed" we won't have reminders of the profound mistakes we have made in the history of planning and development...like concentrating poverty in high-rise towers a la Corbusier or automobile-dependent cookie cutter suburbs. I think that to truly encourage a lifestyle shift, we must be diligent in analyzing our errors and educating the general public about why such developments were later deemed faux pas. If we live in a post-oil world where everything is "sustainable," I would still like to be able to take my grandchildren to see a 1970s suburban development like the 1 where I grew up and to take them through a drive-in movie theater. I think values associated with some of the urban and suburban design mishaps should still be transmitted to future generations.
PAGE 6, PARAGRAPHS 2-3:
"...recent buildings...especially those constructed between the 1950s and 1980s...often include experimental materials and assemblies that were not designed to last beyond a generation. Today these buildings make up more than half of our nonresidential housing stock. Because of their sheer numbers, demolishing and replacing them isn't an option."
Moe lays out this challenge to preservationists, but doesn't address what needs to be done. I think that retrofitting modern suburbia for "sustainable stewardship" is going to be an exciting and important endeavor. It will be a way to reuse existing infrastructure and make use of innovative technologies. In the end, it will depend on the marketing. LEED-ND certification might aid in the redevelopment of some suburban neighborhoods as a socially and environmentally conscious alternative to McMansions. The Levittown-sized single family home with a white picket fence seems to no longer be the American Dream. We can't preserve these places if there is no real estate demand for them. Will it be easier to sell the idea of dwelling in cities than in "green suburbs"?
19 comments:
Greeting 742ers,
Was great to meet all of you last week, and I look forward to joining you again a little later this semester. In the meantime, I'll be sharing interesting things I find in the sustainability/preservation realm via this blog (and the Trust's blog, PreservationNation http://blogs.nationaltrust.org/preservationnation/).
Top on my list today is a fantastic new website with an embodied energy calculator -- check it out at http://www.thegreenestbuilding.org/
This website -- and the associated blog -- were put together by planners in Highland Park Illinois who are concerned with the "Teardowns" phenomena plaguing that area. Plug in the square footage of a building, the type of building (house, office building, etc.) and voila – an estimate of embodied energy.
Happy Calculating,
Patrice
“reply” to Moe: Class 2 (1/23) - Caitlin Laskey
What exactly will it mean to “go green” with preservation, in terms of technologies used and the money and effort that goes into such a project? The “green” movement is fairly modern; are there materials and processes that can be adapted to the preservation world? The idea of “going green” looks like sleek steel, brick, and glass structures of interesting conceptual spaces and forms (at least in my experience), however, historic structures do not always appear cohesive and can lose their appeal with misused though well-meaning technology installed. In terms of aesthetics, can we “go green” and still uphold an historic appearance? Or does this call for an end to the debate of whether to juxtapose or replicate, siding on the juxtaposition end of the argument? And often full rehabilitation projects can cost a great deal more in terms of getting an existing building to function the way modern businesses or homeowners desire then to just build new. Perhaps in the long run the cost of building new is much more, but is “going green” with an historic structure just as if not more energy-efficient then “going green” with a completely new structure? Maybe it is, I’m not sure, but when preservation projects can begin to cost several millions to get it to “shine like new”, is the money and energy better spent on the truly new, or are we saving money and energy by saving what we have? I’m certainly not advocating for new “green” construction rather than “green” preservation, but I wonder what “green” preservation looks like and if it truly costs less. Can the everyday homeowner afford it and will it fit in with the rest of the structure or will we be resorting to solar panels on slate roofs and rotating blinds on century-old double hung windows?
Richard Moe’s points regarding ‘sustainable stewardship’ concisely summarize the hypocrisy that is dominating the American housing market. As he points out, the recent discussions involving sustainability and green building methods are angled toward the promotion of new development and construction; as a result, structures continue to be built despite a growing collection of vacant shells throughout the nation. At a time when the domestic housing market is suffering, many fail to acknowledge the surplus of structures that are perfectly inhabitable. In my opinion, the recent housing trends have gone like this:
As is the case with the majority of metropolitan areas in the country, one’s social status is largely dependent on appearances – notably the size/style of your house and the model car you drive. John Q. Public and his family live in a house for a few years while he and his wife attempt to climb the corporate ladder. After some time, the kids get older and the family decides to relocate to a town with a stronger school district; unhappy with the similarity between their current home and those on the market, they decide to build a better structure (McMansion?) instead. This trend is spread throughout the nation and continues throughout their lives, even reflecting on the cars they drive and the consumer products they own. Cars, for instance, are often leased or owned for 2-3 years before being traded in for credit towards another new car; at a time when the economy is nearing recession (and not to get too off topic), keeping an investment (the vehicle) that immediately depreciates by 50% the moment it leaves the lot for a fifth of its intended service life is the epitome of wastefulness.
The question I raise is how can we halt this continuing trend? One would think the current state of the market would wake people up to their inefficient ways, but that hardly seems to be the case. I would love to see the government (state or federal) step in and begin to limit the amount of development while promoting rehabilitation of existing structures (laced with economic incentives). I believe that it is an incredibly viable option, but it needs to be addressed now while the market is suffering.
What troubles me is the eagerness of the general public to embrace such a movement; so often do people dream of living in ‘their house’, a home they dreamt up and can uniquely lay claim to. Will people readily come to grips with the fact that we all must halt our wasteful ways of living, beginning with where we live and what we live in? Sure, there is precedent; young musicians and artists regularly populate slumping neighborhoods, only to revive the places for eventual gentrification. Maybe we’re relegated to forming street teams whose mission is to frequent college campuses, art galleries and coffee shops, attempting to convince the creative populous to become the catalyst. Regardless, Moe raises a number of compelling issues and statistics that should help change people’s perceptions of the term ‘sustainability’.
Addressing the concerns of climate change and how historic preservation can mitigate climate change is a critical component of our field today. Moe’s cited statistics on building and waste in the United States effectively justifies why historic preservation should spearhead the search for possible solutions and the facts are of such significance that they should be considered by experts in all fields. However, I question Mr. Moe’s focus on federal action and national policy as the primary method for impacting climate change and changing development patterns.
Moe's belief in the effectiveness of policy change seems similar to when our field championed federal tax incentives as a means to save historic structures. Did tax incentives make people recognize the importance of historic structures or was it a superficial effort because it was concerned with monetary rather than social incentives? Was this an effective long-term approach that strengthened the field? Similarly, will routing efforts to instate federal policies on building practices spawn environmental responsibility?
While national policy and federal incentives would certainly provide important guidelines, I am not convinced it would serve to accomplish the most important thing of all: to make people care about the issues. Moe states that too many people “don’t see” the connection between poor development habits and climate change, but I wonder if the majority just does not care enough to change their habits. When the environmentally responsible efforts of hundreds of people are undercut by the legally and ethically questionable actions of small groups at private, federal, state, and municipal levels (for example raising entire city blocks for one company’s building), I wonder if focusing on changing individual ethoses would be more effective than implementing policy in the effort to change development practices. So I suppose my question is this: Does policy change ethos or does ethos change policy?
Richard Moe’s speech “Sustainable Stewardship: Historic Preservation’s Essential Role in Fighting Climate Change” is a good introduction to the areas in which the missions of historic preservation and those of sustainable development overlap. However, as a speech presented to a wide audience, there exist inevitable gaps in the logic of the arguments presented leaving it open to perhaps too easy criticism.
Moe never addresses one of the primary reasons why developers shy away from retrofitting, adapting, or renovation older buildings: there is significantly more risk involved in the projects. While you can accurately budget for the construction of a new building, a common real estate development mantra when considering an older building is that you cannot predict costs because you “never know what is behind those walls.” Namely, a building which initially appears to be in good condition might have significantly higher renovation costs than previously expected. This risk causes many developers to opt not to engage in such projects. While the historic renovation credits can be used to pad the risk factor it is not sufficient to assuage the concerns of many in the field.
Moe also does not make any distinction between the preservation of buildings of historical importance and the preservation of any existing building, just because it already exists. If a historical preservation agency takes on this wide of a position, it risks undercutting and overshadowing its core beliefs. Essentially the ending argument is that all new is bad and that might give unnecessary ammunition to opponents of the real mission of a historic preservation agency. It would serve Moe better to more clearly articulate his position.
Also not addressed is the potential conflict between the preservation of an existing building just because it exists and the potential for the development of a new building on that same site which might potentially be better suited to the principles of sustainable development as a whole. Is the preservation of a three-story building, of no significant historical value in an urban location well served by public transportation, truly a better decision than the construction of a larger multifamily unit, designed to the best standards of energy efficiency, which would allow for housing families that might otherwise have to find housing in the suburban sprawl? Low density urban housing preserved just because it already exists might not be the best choice in that scenario.
There is no doubt that there is excessive waste in the development industry and that existing buildings are torn down which could and often should have been preserved and retrofitted in order to build new constructions that are often of substandard design and quality. However, the argument for the shared goals of historic preservation and sustainable development needs to be honed to better protect it from the easy attacks currently afforded to naysayers in order to meet wider reaching acceptance and bring to the public attention the ways in which historic preservation deserves a more public role in the sustainable development movement.
Richard Moe’s speech raises critical issues facing preservation today, but up until Patrice’s lecture and Moe’s speech, I was unaware of the actual magnitude and precariousness of our situation and of how acutely crucial concrete (as in tangible) sustainability is for architecture and preservation. Until recently, “sustainability” and “green” building have been presented to us (as preservationists) by and large as abstract concepts and as universal ideals to strive toward, but Moe’s statistics and physical data are staggering. Moe gave this speech one month ago and presents these figures as if few have heard them before. If preservationists and advocates of sustainability are just beginning to realize the criticality of the state of our world, how long will it take for those outside of the field to catch up?
Efforts at the state and local level must continue, but we cannot hope to spur national and federal agenda and legislation without the “fostering” and “stewardship” to which Moe refers. I believe that advocacy and education are most critical to the success of sustainability. Not only the legislators, but even more importantly the public should know that it is more wasteful to tear down and rebuild than to preserve, that “buildings constructed before 1920 are actually more energy-efficient than buildings built at any time afterwards,” and that new suburbs and sprawl are not our best and only option. Moe mentions recycling newspapers and bottles and cans – how long did it take for the general public to accept recycling as necessary practice? It will take efforts exponentially more costly, widespread, compelling and hard-hitting to convince the public to recycle a building. And even with the full knowledge of its benefits and the prevalence of recycling plastic, aluminum, and paper, some still do not participate in what is slowly becoming a global phenomenon.
In addition to these more general thoughts, I also will reiterate my concern with the buildings Moe mentioned that were built between the 1950s and 1980s. As of yet, there has been no solution to the problem of these structures put forward by the National Trust or USGBC or by an organization like the DOCOMOMO. I believe that a creative response to these buildings will be most essential as they are the least sustainable.
reply to Moe: Class 2 - Sean Fagan
I question whether it is wise for preservation to continue to play "follow the leader" in terms of societal trends. As Moe adroitly points out in his first few paragraphs, the emphasis of preservation has changed from that of historical stewardship, to that of economic benefit, to finally being a supporter and "enhancer" of social values. Now, preservation must again change its purpose and focus on new catchall buzzword of "sustainability." If the "industry" of preservation is to move in this direction, it can also be loosely concluded that many projects will have to be sold on the basis of their "sustainability." And the difficult part, and the part that Moe does not address, is that many buildings are unsustainable, simply because they can not be adapted to current uses or altered by "green" technology. What then happens to these buildings that cannot adjust to preservation's current lockstep mentality?
Further, Moe's definition of preservation sustainability is also to this reader, exceedingly limited. Moe's goes to great length to explain how the historic buildings in most respects represent the greenest alternative to new construction. However, a stronger point could have been made in that preservation is NOT just about buildings, but the preservation of landscapes, open space, working farmlands, all work towards ensuring a more sustainable environment.
Moe begins his speech with a simple definition of preservation as “having the good sense to hold on to things that are well designed, that link us with our past in a meaningful way, and that have plenty of good use left in them.” From a preservation standpoint this definition can both help push the adaptive reuse of historic buildings and welcome the destruction of historic resources. While I agree with Moe that the main way out of the current environment crisis is through the conservation and reuse of existing building resources I feel that his desire to have the vast majority of the existing and historic buildings reused could be interpreted as gut and redesign the interior, leaving only the exterior shell of the historic building.
I do believe that all historic buildings can be “greened” and reused in a way that will capture their embodied energy and breathe new life into the building and surrounding area without sacrificing the historic value of the building. Moe states that the “reuse” has not made its way into the green building lexicon, however, LEED-NC does give designers the opportunity to earn up to 3 credits under Materials and Resources depending on what percentage of an existing building is reused. Within his plea for the reuse of existing structures he speaks little about the preservation of cultural heritage. Currently LEED-NC does not require or recommend that a preservationist be hired or consulted during the reuse of an existing building. While it would be my hope that an architect engaged in the reused of such a building would be sensitive to the existing historic fabric, my only concern would be that cultural heritage could be lost if they were not. While working with the USGBC the National Trust should ensure that preservationists are consulted so that buildings with historic value are reused in a way that does not negate their historic integrity.
I agree that the type of thinking and building that brought the world into its current state will not be able to successfully bring it out of the environmental crisis it currently faces. Moe expresses concern over the fact that under LEED standards new developments can be considered “green” even when they are constructed in places where there is no existing infrastructure, however, without the LEED guidelines the new developments would be even less sustainable. While the LEED standards are often mocked as a numbers game, by creating a set of guidelines that are both helpful to the environment and attractive to financially vested parties, the USGBC has helped sustainability gain momentum in the building industry. While LEED does not tell an architect where to locate interior walls or how to design the programmatic layout of a building it does give easily implementable alternatives that will benefit the client, occupants, and environment in a way that standard construction will not.
It is refreshing to see the National Trust for Historic Preservation recognize and take on an issue that meaningfully connects the benefits of preservation to issues of broad public concern. As Richard Moe states, by promoting preservation as a “key component” of sustainable development, preservationists can recast the social, economic and environmental value of preservation in light of the national conversation about climate change. As Moe notes, the notion that preservation and sustainability are linked is not a new one to preservationists, but it is a connection that could help build preservation new constituencies, forge coalitions and change public perception of preservation as the realm of stuffy old ladies and iconic buildings.
The quality of our urban environments and the push to sprawl are undeniably two sides of the same coin. Under Moe the NTHP has worked for over a decade to link historic preservation with anti-sprawl movements, in regard mostly to the economic vitality of main street downtowns but also on environmental grounds. By claiming ground under the umbrella of sustainability, the Trust will augment this work by helping quantify and qualify the environmental benefits of preservation, as well as find ways to make smart compromises about green technologies. By understanding preservation through the prism of sustainability, common old buildings can be seen as vessels of embodied energy and our dominant land-use patterns can be seen as wasteful and reckless.
To refocus from historicity as the dominant value of old buildings, and to consider the value of these buildings as ecological as well as economic is to make an important shift in preservation thought that might extend the appeal of preservation as a movement. Preservationists and environmentalists have not always been successful in uniting to address shared concerns. In fact, they often are forced to compete for the same sources of funding to do what is essentially, critically related work. Consequently provincialism still divides the two movements in many places. This makes the Trust’s Sustainability Initiative all the more important because it provides common cause for people concerned about how to build sustainable places.
For those that are interested, here is the link to the Sustainable Sites Initiative that is developing LEED-like certification for landscapes: http://www.sustainablesites.org/index.html
There is a preliminary report posted. We just missed the deadline for public review of this preliminary report, but there will be a public review of the revision later this year.
While I would describe my knowledge of green building upon entering this class as vague at best, I would consider myself environmentally aware and of course also have a background in historic preservation. I therefore assumed I had a decent understanding of the connection between sustainability and preservation, but I have to admit that I was shocked by the numerous statistics that Moe cited throughout his speech on Sustainability Stewardship. I now realize that I didn’t truly understand the magnitude of energy consumption issues and that I have a lot to learn about sustainability and preservation.
If an interested preservationist can be relatively uneducated in such issues, what does that mean for the average citizen? What really struck me about Moe’s speech, then, is how far the preservation movement has to go in educating the broader public about sustainability itself, and further, its connection with historic preservation. In my experience, most people outside the preservation field are still stuck on the “little old ladies in white tennis shoes” concept of preservation. Most don’t even seem to realize its connection to conservation/restoration and architecture, never mind a possible connection to environmental responsibility. Further, if successful sustainability projects require not just growth in the green building market, or government sponsored tax incentives, but really an awakening awareness and shift in thinking concerning the environment, how will this be accomplished when the public is likely unaware, or worse, just may not care? In connection with our readings for this week, are most people really willing to sacrifice individually in order to benefit the greater “commons” or community? To echo the sentiments of several other bloggers today, sustainability sadly just may not be a value that most people share.
My feeling is that the only way to really combat this is through more aggressive advocacy and education measures. Moe mentioned outreach to architects, developers, etc., specifically, as well as a useful “best practices” website, but I wonder about more aggressively reaching out to the average citizen too. It’s likely that what most people really need to wake up to the realities of energy consumption and the solutions of sustainability and preservation are straight statistics and examples, such as those provided in Moe’s speech. An idea as simple as the 1980 poster featuring an historic building in the shape of a gas can seems like possibly the best and most concise way to make such a connection for citizens. A message in this form is easily distributed, as well as memorable and easily understood.
Moe touches on a very interesting point when he mentions trends in the preservation field. During the late nineteenth century, when preservation first began to have a presence in America, society placed emphasis on the country’s founding fathers and other great men. Preservation responded to this by focusing on saving and restoring iconic buildings such as Mount Vernon. This trend continued until the mid twentieth century when focus shifted to preserving main streets and defending small towns from strip malls. Preservation appealed to the masses because it could be economically efficient. Today, the trend is all about sustainability. Many different facets of American society are emphasizing the importance of keeping the environment healthy. Preservation has followed and, as Moe promotes in this speech, seeks to play a bigger role in ameliorating the environmental situation.
As far as I observed, Moe does not address or question the concept of sustainability as a trend in preservation. Does preservation always need a motive which appeals to people outside of the field to justify its actions? Are we using environmental concerns as a reason to preserve or are we preserving to address environmental concerns? Maybe the bigger question is can preservation ever stand on its own or does it always need to gain support from trends in society?
In response to Moe's speech, I agree with his main hypothesis about preservation being the first method of sustainability. However, as an architect, I know there are many more factors that determine whether or not preserving a building is sustainable or not. I believe that buildings that meet a certain set of criteria such as historic or cultural significance, but some buildings require much more cost, energy and time to convert into environmentally and socially sustainable buildings. I currently live in a reused garment factory building that is over a hundred years old. I love that it is a reused structure despite the fact that it was reappropriated by a developer who did not take a lot of pains with ensuring that the building was properly conditioned to meet the comfort level standards of domestic living. The central heating and air is a great convenience, but the developer never bothered to properly seal and insulate the building resulting in high energy costs which in turn fall back on the tenant. Preservation seems to really work on a case by case basic, but the lack of regulations in many cases allow for buildings to be reused often without proper attention to reconditioning. Like Moe stated, many buildings from the 20th century were not built with durable materials or they were constructed with experimental measures making it sometimes difficult to preserve. Buildings that contain large amounts of hazardous materials such as asbestos and PVC are not ideal candidates for preservation; nevertheless, I agree with Moe’s position on preserving iconic buildings or significant historical buildings for the sake of “cultural memory.” These structures serve as living histories to educate architects as well as the world, and are just as important on the architectural timeline as the Parthenon or Gothic cathedrals. While Moe’s points are valid and he address some key issues merging the disciplines of sustainability and historic preservation, he remains to be a bit superficial in proposing real strategies to deal with the large amount of buildings that are gradually becoming obsolete.
Moe’s speech on “Sustainable Stewardship” left me with plenty to chew on. I apologize here at the start if my ideas jump around, but there are many things I would like to touch on, and not much space to do it in.
Firstly, in his acceptance speech for the Vincent Scully Prize, it is obvious that Richard Moe could not enter into great depth on the topics of preservation and stability. At times, I had to wonder about statistics he enumerated, although they were presented in a very effective and compelling manner. Clearly Moe knows how to reach an audience, he long ago realized that raw emotion would not always be enough, while impressive statistics often have the force of authority and an indelible “wow” factor. I agree that an emphasis on the economic benefits of preservation and sustainability speaks to a wider audience, including business interests and government officials. This is not to say, however, that Moe left out the social implications of the preservation sustainability movement.
When reading this piece, I related many of Moe’s concepts to experiences in my own life. I felt a particular pang at his mention of Loudoun County, the place where I was born and raised. During my short lifetime, I witnessed the transformation from rural, history-laden lots to new, mass-produced sprawl. I agree with the general idea that many “historic” homes are innately “green.” Until the 1950s, farmhouses in my hometown nestled in hillsides for protection from the weather and naturally cooling, they were oriented to take advantage of southern rays and away from northern gusts. Today, developers build homes without regard to their setting, exposing them to the elements and angling them towards cul-de-sacs instead of the sun.
Several preservation challenges occurred to me throughout the piece. One that stood out was how to offer products that can help make older buildings more energy-efficient without compromising their historic character. I think that preservationists will come up against this argument repeatedly, as it provides a simple way to defeat the cause with practical logistics. In thinking about this, I thought about a townhome I visited in Washington, D.C. over the summer. A new, “green” development firm was eagerly displaying its ability to rehabilitate historic homes in a sustainable, “green” way. The result was impressive and attractive, although it entailed gutting the building, replacing windows, doors, floors, stairs, walls, and all manner of fabric original to the structure’s construction. True, there are many degrees of preservation, and there is not a single model that suits all situations, but I do think preservationists are going to have to acknowledge a certain reality. The simple fact is that there are going to be situations where the preservation movement becomes so caught up in the sustainability movement that preservation will be thrown aside. This is a complex reality, perhaps at this moment the need for sustainability is greater, but I hope that this is not entirely the case.
Moe does a good job of illustrating the changes within the preservation field and how new concepts of sustainable development can be integrated. A few of his comments stood out in particular.
He points out the innate sustainable qualities of historic materials. While not always energy efficient by contemporary standards, many thick-walled historic buildings utilize their embedded thermal mass to reduce energy costs. Light wells, porches, and large windows provide exposure to natural sunlight and air ventilation. Also, the durable nature of their materials and construction technique make them a desirable candidate for operation and reuse.
Over half of nonresidential building stock today was built between the 1950s and 1980s, usually with experimental materials and techniques, and without the intention to last longer than one generation. Despite such hurdles, these buildings can be rehabilitated and reestablished as useful and desirable components of the built environment. It would completely negate the ideas of sustainability to ignore this building stock as historic by destroying it in favor of new construction.
Most distressing about his speech however is the unsustainable nature of much of today’s development policies. Beyond the facilitation of rural sprawl, the lack of coherent and cohesive policy results in fractured understanding of sustainable principles and possible solutions. As Moe says, we need a federal policy that stops rewarding unsustainable development. I agree with his push for incentives that encourage reuse and energy upgrades in existing buildings. Instead of promoting new construction that meets new sustainability standards, policy at all levels should help advance initiatives for use of older buildings.
With their Sustainability Initiative, The National Trust is enabling preservationists to participate in the outreach efforts to inform and facilitate change.
Response to Moe, Class 2 (1/23)
Richard Moe presents a well-organized, compelling argument for preservation's role as a linchpin in addressing Global Warming. Aside from the data-driven arguments presenting the eminent wasefullness of tearing down structures as opposed to preserving them, he makes an important argument that preservation gives us a tangible connection to the past that is vital to a sustainable community. It is this aspect of his speech which I wish to address.
I believe that a further point that could be added to Moe's speech is that preservation gives us a window into techniques our forefathers used to live comfortably without many of the unsustainable technologies we use today. Traditional neighborhoods, for example, were built for walking. The houses were located close together, mixed uses ensured close proximity to retail and a dense fabric of small stores provided easy local shopping for daily needs. If we do not have these neighborhoods to look to as a model, we will never be able to achieve neighborhood sustainability, because big box strip malls and suburban sprawl are clearly not it.
Thus I argue that preservation's role can be expanded to that of the guide towards sustainability. Many of the things preservationists try to conserve are important models of sustainability. When we start to reform our society to become more sustainable, we will need these models and preservationists will be our guides. Preservationists, more than anybody else, know what life was like in the days before many of the technologies that are now creating our global climate crisis existed. If air conditioning becomes prohibitively expensive, preservationists can point to the complex system of porches, verandas, louvers, fans and windows that once cooled houses.
I think Moe has taken an important first step towards highlighting preservation's crucial role in addressing global warming. I suggest he could have gone further, and I hope preservationists continue this movement.
-David McCarthy
I agree with Moe that “we can’t build our way out of the global warming crisis. We have to conserve our way out of it.” Given the statistics he presents, it seems entirely logical that we should reuse the existing stock of buildings we have rather than waste dwindling resources on constructing new buildings that will take decades to recapture the embodied energy lost through demolition. The adaptive reuse argument is entirely convincing and would persuade even the staunchest of opponents to at least consider recycling a building rather than discarding it.
There is a distinct challenge though in forcefully acting upon the statistics and it’s a matter of perspective really. Getting people of all backgrounds – from residential homeowners to building contractors to federal government officials – requires changing the way people think, and that is a very slow process. What’s more, this effort to change our nation’s psychology also goes up against a very thick and well-ingrained reality that is the core of our nation’s economy and perhaps collective psyche – capitalism and the belief that we can spend our way out of our troubles.
Moe points out that we are trying to solve the problem of greenhouse emissions by constructing more buildings and ignoring those that we have. But what do we when the building industry, including construction and maintenance, accounts for more than 25% of the US GDP? There is an enormous industry of individuals, companies and investments built up behind the built environment. Since more 15% of that quarter amount comes from services – rent and utilities – developers will likely use these figures to support their cause of demolition and construction of newer, more energy-efficient buildings.
There of course are arguments that can be advanced on either side of this debate, but the fact remains that buildings in the US play a significant role in the economic infrastructure and health of our economy. We can already see the widespread effects of the current collapse of the subprime mortgage market. The argument to convince people that our historic buildings are the key to reducing cumulative greenhouse emissions currently seems to be based primarily on science and ethics (however we define ethics), but in order for the building industry as a whole to similarly view the merits of preservation, we could better our case by speaking the language of the economics of the industry. In the end if what we want is for our historic buildings to see new life as the energy-efficient solution for our future, we need to add financial reasoning to our cache of arguments in order to reach those who may be driven more by economics than social or physical incentives.
The presentation given by Moe certainly outlines excellent ways that the field of preservation contributes to the sustainability “movement.” In his speech, Moe focuses primarily on the ecological/environmental aspects of sustainability—especially with regards to energy consumption. This is likely due to environmental issues having the greatest resonance among the public and the one most directly tied to climate change. The link between preservation and sustainable development has existed for some time, but it just has not been framed in a way so as to align itself with the concept of sustainability until recently. Moe acknowledges this fact when he mentions a Preservation Week poster from 1980 which showed a historic building made to resembling a gas can.
Moe states that historic preservation is “the ultimate recycling” when it comes to the built environment and this is true and I believe it is a very valuable argument for future of preservation as it expands the role of preservationists in land use and planning. Furthermore, the concept of sustainability and sustainable development enables preservationists to argue for the reuse and preservation of buildings from a more concrete perspective than the more intangible aesthetic and cultural value perspective that the field has traditionally used to advocate for saving significant buildings and districts. As a profession we possess a cache of knowledge about how best to reuse of existing structures and the numerous benefits of it—and therefore we have been advocating for it for years, but now there is science to back us up.
What surprised me from the speech though was that Moe did not mention the other forms of sustainability—social and economic—much and the way that the field of preservation contributes to those aspects of sustainability as well. While certainly aspects of social sustainability have been addressed in other ways thorough the profession’s advocacy and work in saving places of artistic and historical significance, as sustainability is such an important buzzword in public discourse it would be helpful to articulate the cultural resource work of preservationists in this way. In terms of the economic sustainability, Moe primarily touches on this when looking over the evolution of the field and he spoke about briefly about the economic impact of historic preservation, yet there is much more to that in terms of jobs per dollar and the impact that can have on local economies.
Acknowledging the inherent connections between sustainable development and historic preservation and articulating it well to the public is a significant opportunity for growing the profession’s relevancy and changing some of the public’s perception of the profession as well, that by looking at saving elements of the past., we are contributing to a better future. However, we must also be wary of focusing too much on a single aspect of the sustainability framework, e.g. ecological, at the expense of either social or economic sustainability.
I am just about caught up since deciding last week that I did want to take this course...
Personally, I am so glad to see preservation as sustainable stewardship in the limelight. The whole reason I chose to pursue a dual degree in planning and preservation was to work in the field of environmental planning and growth management in older communities. I've always been intrigued by the Main Street Program as a means of stimulating reinvestment in existing communities and reusing existing infrastructure as an alternative to greenfield development. That said, I agree with many of the points that Moe makes in this speech.
There are 2 passages in particular that I think warrant longer discussion...
PAGE 1, PARAGRAPH 3:
"...preservation is simply having the good sense to hold on to things that are well designed, that link us with our past in a meaningful way, and that have plenty of good use left in them."
Does it matter that something be "well designed"? If we only preserve the "well designed" we won't have reminders of the profound mistakes we have made in the history of planning and development...like concentrating poverty in high-rise towers a la Corbusier or automobile-dependent cookie cutter suburbs. I think that to truly encourage a lifestyle shift, we must be diligent in analyzing our errors and educating the general public about why such developments were later deemed faux pas. If we live in a post-oil world where everything is "sustainable," I would still like to be able to take my grandchildren to see a 1970s suburban development like the 1 where I grew up and to take them through a drive-in movie theater. I think values associated with some of the urban and suburban design mishaps should still be transmitted to future generations.
PAGE 6, PARAGRAPHS 2-3:
"...recent buildings...especially those constructed between the 1950s and 1980s...often include experimental materials and assemblies that were not designed to last beyond a generation. Today these buildings make up more than half of our nonresidential housing stock. Because of their sheer numbers, demolishing and replacing them isn't an option."
Moe lays out this challenge to preservationists, but doesn't address what needs to be done. I think that retrofitting modern suburbia for "sustainable stewardship" is going to be an exciting and important endeavor. It will be a way to reuse existing infrastructure and make use of innovative technologies. In the end, it will depend on the marketing. LEED-ND certification might aid in the redevelopment of some suburban neighborhoods as a socially and environmentally conscious alternative to McMansions. The Levittown-sized single family home with a white picket fence seems to no longer be the American Dream. We can't preserve these places if there is no real estate demand for them. Will it be easier to sell the idea of dwelling in cities than in "green suburbs"?
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