PAST AND PRESENT
rowth in a community is great; it means more jobs, a grow- ing population, new and fun restaurants, and other such improve- ments that come with a growing economy. But growth often comes at the expense of history, wiping away the past to make room for the future. As communities grow and evolve, too easily are historical buildings razed to make way for “progress,” leaving the stories and memories of a place to be forgotten. Taking the time and energy to honor relevant historical elements of spaces and finding a way to mod- ernize the balance to serve a new purpose keeps these stories alive and maintains a community’s connection to the space. This is the essence of adaptive reuse. While there’s a myriad of benefits in choosing to reuse exist- ing structures instead of building new ones, this article will focus on how it positively affects environmental im- pact and an improved sense of place. Adaptive reuse is a concept where an existing structure is updated or adapted for a new purpose while preserving specific elements. Typically, this happens with historic buildings or buildings that have been vacant for a significant period of time and focuses on keeping historic features or aspects that tell the unique history of a building; it’s honoring the past but accepting the fact that we are all moving forward. In its best form, adaptive reuse melds past and present to create a deeper, more meaningful sense of place by bringing history into the present and allowing people to feel connected to it in a modern way. But there’s more to adaptive reuse projects than just maintaining a connection to our past. From an environmental perspective, adaptive reuse provides multiple benefits. By reusing what’s already present, adaptive reuse helps avoid unneces- sary urban sprawl, a major contributor
G October 2022 7
to greenhouse gas emissions. New buildings on previously unimproved land will remove vegetation that can serve as important green spaces, require the use of new building materials, and, more often than not, require users to drive farther than previously necessary. According to The Brookings Institution, North America is a world leader in both building-relat- ed energy consumption and vehicle miles traveled per capita (www.
brookings.edu/research/we-cant-beat- the-climate-crisis-without-rethinking- land-use/), which is not something to be particularly proud of. However, without considering sprawl, demolish- ing old buildings has significant environmental costs. As documented in an article published by the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning, demolition makes up 25 percent of the solid waste that goes into U.S. landfills each year (
www.cmap.
illinois.gov/about/2040/supporting- materials/process-archive/strategy- papers/teardowns/effects). It’s more than just physical waste too. When a building is demolished, the energy embedded in that structure is also lost. This energy included what was expended in the original production, transportation of the materials, and any human power used in its con- struction and upkeep. We don’t often think about waste in this way, but what’s spent once can never be spent again, and demolishing a building is wasting all of that energy as well as all of the physical material being sent to a landfill.
Benefits Of Reuse
There are further environmental ben- efits to reusing buildings. According to an article published by The Ameri- can Institute of Architects, adaptively reusing a building generally saves about 50 to 75 percent of embodied carbon compared to new construction
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40
