It makes greener sense to reuse an old building as
KIM DAVIS
Sun
The Heatley Block, located at Heatley and Hastings in Vancouver’s Strathcona neighbourhood, was purchased by the City of Vancouver and may be torn down to make room for a new community library. The Heritage Vancouver Society has listed the site as one of Vancouver’s top 10 endangered sites, calling it ‘one of the last remaining character buildings on a particularly bleak section of East Hastings.’
The Heritage Vancouver Society lists the Heatley Block, a collection of buildings built between 1889 and 1932, as one of Vancouver’s top 10 endangered sites for 2008. A Strathcona landmark — the society describes it as “one of the last remaining character buildings on a particularly bleak section of East Hastings” — the Heatley Block could succumb to demolition in the city’s effort to make room for a much-needed community library. Unfortunately, the Heatley Block is representative of a number of older and historic buildings in Vancouver.
There are only a few hundred structures in the city legally protected from demolition, and every year heritage homes and buildings are demolished, or radically altered, to accommodate newer, bigger, and as it is sometimes argued, greener projects. In his article in the Forum Journal entitled The Greenest Building Is… One That Is Already Built, architect Carl Elefante writes “even if, with the wave of a green wand, every building constructed from this day hence has a vegetative roof, is powered only with renewable energy sources, and is built entirely of environmentally appropriate materials, sustainability would still be far from fully realized.”
Elefante says “we cannot build our way to sustainability, we must conserve our way to it.”
OUR GREEN FOREFATHERS
It has only been recently that North Americans have begun to recognize the connection between heritage conservation and sustainable development.
“A lot of new visitors are calling our office because of the sustainable aspect of working with an old building,” says Elana Zysblat of the Vancouver Heritage Foundation. “While heritage conservation is not perceived to be sustainable, it is inherently green at all levels.”
For example, when one considers that approximately 30 per cent of what goes into our landfill is construction waste — both from new homes and demolition — the rehabilitation of older buildings keeps tons of materials from entering the waste stream.
“Reusing an old building is one of the most significant forms of recycling people can participate in,” says Zysblat.
Elefante writes that “taking into account the massive investment of materials and energy in existing buildings, it is both obvious and profound that extending the useful service life of the building stock is common sense, good business and sound resource management.”
ENERGY ARGUMENTS
There are many otherwise eco-minded people, however, who feel that aging structures — and their energy efficiency, in particular — are not compatible with sustainable development.
In an article in the Seattle Daily Journal of Commerce, architect Michael S. Wishkoski says he feels this idea has been reinforced by the U.S. Green Building Council’s treatment of resource reuse issues in its LEED certification program, which awards only three points (out of 69) for the reuse of an entire building, including its interior walls. Should sustainable performance be judged solely on energy consumption, though? What about embodied energy in existing materials, the cost of demolition and the creation, delivery, and installation of new materials?
Wishkoski writes that “from an embodied energy standpoint — that which has already been extracted, harvested, processed and constructed — conservation offers an enormous sustainable advantage over any kind of virgin or newly manufactured material.”
Zysblat says that “the way green is being marketed right now, old equals ‘not energy efficient,’ but we need to compare the energy to build a new building to the energy needed to upgrade and improve one.”
Another myth related to energy is that people need to replace the single-paned windows in historic buildings with double-paned, low-E versions. According to the National Institute of Building Sciences in the U.S. and their Whole Building Design Guide (www.wbdg.org), one does not need to replace historic windows to meet the rigors of LEED guidelines. They suggest that the primary cause of infiltration can be addressed with insulation, weatherstripping, and trim repair. Installing storm windows, a feature on many older buildings, is also a recommended alternative.
DOLLARS AND
CONCERNS
Another challenge that faces heritage conservation is the belief that it is more expensive to renovate and upgrade older structures than to build new ones. Zysblat notes a quote by the consummate businessman Donald Trump in Preservation magazine: “I’ve always found that it’s cheaper to use an existing structure. Now doing so is more complicated, and you actually have to be a better builder to do that kind of work, but if you know what you’re doing, it costs you less money.”
Donovan Rypkema, a principal in PlaceEconomics, a Washington, D.C.–based real estate consulting firm, writes in his article, Economics, Sustainability, and Historic Preservation in Forum Journal that “the city tells its own past, transfers its own memory, largely through the fabric of the built environment.” He says that “we need to use our cities, our cultural resources, and our memories to ensure that they are available for future generations to use as well.”
While it is too early to say whether the pressed metal cornices and crenellated parapets that echo the memories of Heatley Block will be spared the pressures of development, Rypkema believes that “there can be no sustainable development without a central role for historic preservation.”
The Vancouver Heritage Foundation will be releasing a technical pamphlet on heritage conservation and sustainable development this fall. For more information visit www.vancouverheritagefoundation.org
