[Re]Evaluating Significance: The Environmental and Cultural Value in Older and Historic

Buildings
Author(s): Kathryn Rogers Merlino
Source: The Public Historian , Vol. 36, No. 3 (August 2014), pp. 70-85
Published by: University of California Press on behalf of the National Council on Public
History
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/tph.2014.36.3.70

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide
range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and
facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at
https://about.jstor.org/terms

National Council on Public History and University of California Press are collaborating with JSTOR
to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Public Historian

This content downloaded from

128.227.114.24 on Sat, 04 Jan 2020 20:14:56 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
Historic Preservation and Sustainable
Communities

[Re]Evaluating Significance:
The Environmental and
Cultural Value in Older
and Historic Buildings
Kathryn Rogers Merlino

Abstract: Traditionally the value of a building is measured through the historical, cultural,
or architectural significance that has emerged from the established traditions of historic
preservation policy in the United States. Although the designation of historic properties is
a critical venue to save our most historically significant buildings, it does not account for
those that fall outside of the established categories of significance. Accounting for the
environmental value of buildings and understanding them as repositories of energy and
materials repositions the way we value of the built environment for a more sustainable
future.

Key words: adaptive reuse, historic preservation, sustainability, cultural preservation,

building reuse

The Public Historian, Vol. 36, No. 3, pp. 70–85 (August 2014).
ISSN: 0272-3433, electronic ISSN 1533-8576.
© 2014 by The Regents of the University of California and the
National Council on Public History. All rights reserved.
Please direct all requests for permission to photocopy or reproduce article content
through the University of California Press’s Rights and Permissions Web site:
www.ucpressjournals.com/reprintInfo.asp. DOI: 10/1525/tph.2014.36.3.70.

70

This content downloaded from

128.227.114.24 on Sat, 04 Jan 2020 20:14:56 UTC6 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 [RE]EVALUATING SIGNIFICANCE & 71

Introduction

Whether they are monumental or vernacular, large or small,

beautiful or ugly, buildings play a prominent role in our lives and are a critical
part of our human experience. They not only provide shelter for places to
work, sleep, eat, and play, but they also affect us with their form, color,
materials, and aesthetic. As the stage for historic narrative, buildings help
us understand our past heritage and connect us to our present community.
Thus, buildings are resource-intensive, handmade artifacts that have immense
cultural, historical, and environmental value.
Buildings also have a tremendous impact on the environment. In the
United States, buildings are responsible for 76% of all electricity consump-
tion,1 41% of all primary energy use,2 48% of all carbon (CO2) emissions,3
60% of all raw material use,4 and 13% of all potable water. Buildings also have
a substantial environmental impact when they are demolished. Of the 275
billion square feet5 of existing buildings in the United States today, nearly two
billion square feet are demolished annually. An estimated 40% of this con-
struction and demolition waste ends up in landfills.6 From their physical assets
to their cultural value, buildings are a critical part of our environment.
In recent years, we have become more aware of our impact on the envi-
ronment, and as a result have changed the way we use and make everything
from buildings to manufactured goods. The growing culture of reuse and
recycling has also evolved over the past decade, from the common use of
carrying reusable shopping bags and water bottles to energy efficient lighting
and curbside recycling. Industry has changed, as well. The design and con-
struction industry were among the earliest to respond to the environmental
imperatives that have emerged over the past two decades through a deter-
mined agenda of green building. ‘‘Green’’ buildings are designed to be more
energy efficient, collect and recycle water, use more recycled and sustainable

1. United States Energy Information Administration, Annual Energy Review 2011

(Washington, DC: US Department of Energy, 2012). The majority of electric power comes
from fossil fuels.
2. Buildings Energy Data Book 2011 (Washington, DC: US Department of Energy, 2012).
3. US Environmental Protection Agency Green Building Workgroup, ‘‘Buildings and Their
Impact on the Environment: A Statistical Summary,’’ 2009.
4. United States Geological Society, ‘‘Factsheet Fs-068-98 Materials Flow and Sustainabil-
ity,’’ http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/fs-0068-98/fs-0068-98.pdf. This is all nonfood/nonfuel material.
5. The Brookings Institution reported that between 2004 and 2030, we are projected to
demolish and replace 82 billion square feet of buildings in the United States, nearly one-third of
our existing building stock. Arthur C. Nelson, ‘‘Towards a New Metropolis: The Opportunity to
Rebuild America’’ (Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution Metropolitan Policy Program,
2004), http://www.brookings.edu/research/reports/2004/12/metropolitanpolicy-nelson. Also see
Architecture 2030, ‘‘A Historic Opportunity,’’ http://architecture2030.org/the_solution/build-
ings_solution_how. These statistics presented represent an average over the past ten years.
6. In 2012, US residents, businesses, and institutions produced more than 251 million tons of
municipal solid waste, which is approximately 4.6 pounds of waste per person per day. US
Environmental Protection Agency, ‘‘Municipal Solid Waste Generation, Recycling, and Disposal
in the United States: Facts and Figures for 2012,’’ 2012.

This content downloaded from

128.227.114.24 on Sat, 04 Jan 2020 20:14:56 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
72 & THE PUBLIC HISTORIAN

materials, and overall reduce negative impacts on the environment. Since the
beginning of the green building industry, however, the focus has been on new
construction, not the reuse of existing buildings. As a society, we have not yet
applied the idea of ‘‘reduce, reuse, and recycle,’’ although present in almost
every aspect of our lives, to our largest manufactured goods, our buildings.
This is a direct result of the way we assign value to existing buildings, which
we traditionally measure through historical or cultural importance. Through
association with historical events, people, cultural groups, or architectural
styles from the past, buildings have been preserved and assigned historic
value worthy of preservation. Through the historic preservation process, cer-
tain characteristics of buildings are recognized, valued, and preserved for
present and future generations, and contribute to creating cultural continuity.
This is an important part of preserving our cultural heritage. However, these
criteria do not apply to the majority of buildings, nor do they illustrate the
total value of older buildings in general, especially for those who have little
historic connections or architectural value.
This discrepancy challenges us to reevaluate how we determine what older
resources are significant and worthy of saving. For almost fifty years, we have
evaluated older buildings for preservation based upon historic and architec-
tural standards. However, the past few years has seen a growing body of
research that positions buildings in another way: as repositories of energy
worth preserving for their environmental value in addition to their (or despite
their lack of) cultural significance. This understanding of both historic and
environmental value positions existing buildings at the forefront of the sus-
tainability movement.

Case Study: The Old Firehouse at Magnuson Park

Valuing buildings through an environmental lens provides a quantifiable

measurement of a building’s physical assets. The environmental value of
a building—and conversely the environmental damage it can do if demol-
ished—can be measured and understood in terms of energy. Energy savings
and expenditure provide an additional way for us to consider a building’s
value. This is especially valuable in cases where historic characteristics are
not considered substantial enough to prevent a building from demolition.
An example of this is Seattle’s Magnuson Park, the site of the former Sand
Point Naval Base. In 2009, Building 18, better known as the old naval fire-
house, was suffering severe deterioration while the city was determining
which structures would be contributing historic buildings in the newly desig-
nated historic district. During their review, the City of Seattle and Seattle
Parks and Recreation found that Building 18 did not meet the criteria of
a contributing structure, and submitted a State Environmental Policy Act
(SEPA) Checklist and Determination of Non-Significance in order to prepare
the paperwork to demolish it. The city had argued that the firehouse should

This content downloaded from

128.227.114.24 on Sat, 04 Jan 2020 20:14:56 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 [RE]EVALUATING SIGNIFICANCE & 73

The old firehouse in Magnuson Park in Seattle marks the entrance to the park with its prominent
position and hose-drying tower, yet has sat empty for years. The building now is getting structural
upgrades to avoid the ‘‘demolition by neglect’’ that would make the building beyond repair, while
the city finds a new tenant for the building. (Photo courtesy of author.)

not be considered for National Register nomination because it ‘‘does not

exhibit Art Deco architectural detailing found on other buildings in the Dis-
trict.’’7 Other historic characteristics, such as the building’s rare hose-drying
tower and prominent position in the park, also were not deemed significant,
and so the city concluded the firehouse was not worthy of preservation status.
Preservation and environmental groups rallied together to save the build-
ing. Rather than citing historic significance, however, these groups argued for
its environmental value and the impact it would have on the environment if
demolished. At a time when the mayor was rolling out a new law banning
plastic shopping bags in the city to reduce landfill waste, the timing was
fortunate. Building 18 was presented as a valuable resource of materials,
a solid brick and steel building of approximately 14,013 square feet. If demol-
ished, 1212 tons of construction and demolition would be put into a landfill.
This volume was equal an individual putting 4.6 pounds per day into a landfill
(the current per capita average in the United States) for 1,444 years and equal
to the recycling of 1,972,830 aluminum soda cans. The building was also
presented as an artifact that embodied all the energy put into the construction

7. City of Seattle Parks and Recreation, ‘‘Determination of Non-Significance, Building 18

Fire Station Demolition,’’ 2009.

This content downloaded from

128.227.114.24 on Sat, 04 Jan 2020 20:14:56 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
74 & THE PUBLIC HISTORIAN

Architecture students at the University of Washington Department of Architecture spent an

academic quarter studying several alternative uses for the firehouse. This image depicts
a student’s proposal of a community center and library. (Image courtesy University of
Washington, Department of Architecture.)

of the building. The firehouse was calculated to equal the energy in the
amount of gasoline it would take to drive an average car every day, 365 days
a year, for over 200 years.8
The environmental argument, as well as continuing historic ones, seemed
to work. The building was made a contributing part of the new regulatory
Seattle historic district, the Sand Point Naval Air Station District, one of seven
historic districts in the city.9 So while the eventual outcome was a successful
one for Building 18, its position on the edge of ‘‘historic significance’’ nearly
resulted in the building’s demolition, for it fell far from the standards of
historic designation.
This reflects a common problem with historic preservation designation
being the only available standard by which to protect buildings from demo-
lition. Value and significance are difficult to assess, and what constitutes
‘‘significant’’ historic value in a building is often debatable among historians,
politicians, and community groups. If significance can’t be established, it
becomes impossible to declare something historic, and suddenly, the building
lacks ‘‘value.’’ This is a very narrow way of measuring cultural and historic
worth, but is traditionally the leading argument for anyone who wants to tear
down an old building. The word ‘‘historic’’ saves it, but ‘‘old’’ or ‘‘existing’’ does
not.

8. Kathryn Rogers Merlino, ‘‘Save That Old Firehouse at Magnuson Park,’’ Crosscut: News of
the Great Nearby, October 2009.
9. The building still sits empty in a condition referred to as ‘‘mothballing,’’ which is written
into the historic designation design guidelines as an attempt to protect the building from the
elements as much as possible as an alternative to demolition.

This content downloaded from

128.227.114.24 on Sat, 04 Jan 2020 20:14:56 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 [RE]EVALUATING SIGNIFICANCE & 75

Traditions in Historic Significance

When the field of preservation emerged in the nineteenth and twentieth

centuries out of European ideals, buildings, monuments, antiquities, and
major historic sites were singled out for their historic value, with a preference
for those that were able to represent originality and authenticity. As a conse-
quence, common, everyday, and vernacular buildings lost ‘‘value’’ in compar-
ison, while certain historic monuments gained importance. This tradition of
valuing the exceptional over the ordinary is entrenched in modern architec-
tural theory. In a 1903 essay entitled ‘‘The Modern Cult of Monuments,’’
Aloes Riegl identified buildings and monuments worth preserving as excep-
tional artifacts that had ‘‘historical value’’ as historical commemorative sites
or ‘‘age value’’ as timeworn ruins.10 Although Riegl suggested the possibility
of what he called ‘‘use value’’ in older buildings that had changed use, he
regarded such ongoing actions as inherently in conflict with the historical
authenticity of monuments from the past.11 In other words, keeping buildings
in their original state of historic integrity was the primary goal.
This viewpoint was formative in early preservation theory, and heavily
influenced the policies that resulted from the 1966 National Historic Preser-
vation Act (NHPA), which, among other things, established the National
Register of Historic Places that coordinates and supports efforts to identify,
evaluate, and protect America’s historic buildings and sites. The National Park
Service regulates and maintains the National Register list that includes over
17,000 significant historic properties. Each one of these has been evaluated
under established criteria for determining historic significance. These criteria
have become the basis for most historical commissions at all levels and have
guided decisionmaking for the designation of historic buildings and sites for
decades. The criteria examine a property’s age, integrity, and significance.
Evaluation criteria from the National Register guidelines begin with ‘‘Age and
Integrity: Is the property old enough to be considered historic (generally at
least 50 years old) and does it still look much the way it did in the past?’’12 The
next part assesses different aspects of historic pasts through ‘‘significance: Is
the property associated with events, activities, or developments that were
important in the past? With the lives of important people in the past? With
significant architectural history, landscape history, or engineering achieve-
ments? Does it have the potential to yield information through archeological
investigation about our past?’’13

10. Alois Reigl, ‘‘The Modern Cult of Monuments: Its Characteristics and Its Origins,’’ [1903]
trans. Kurt Forster and Diane Ghirardo, Oppositions 25 (Fall 1982): 21-51.
11. Reigl, ‘‘The Modern Cult of Monuments.’’
12. Although the National Register requires a building to be fifty years or older to be con-
sidered, some jurisdictions have different requirements. For example, buildings only need to be
twenty-five years old in Seattle to be considered for Seattle Landmark status.
13. National Park Service, ‘‘National Register of Historic Places Program: Fundamentals,’’
http://www.nps.gov/history/nr/publications/bulletins/nrb15/nrb15_2.htm

This content downloaded from

128.227.114.24 on Sat, 04 Jan 2020 20:14:56 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
76 & THE PUBLIC HISTORIAN

Although this process is critical for many of our historic sites both nation-
ally and locally, listing on the National Register does not protect buildings
from change or demolition. This can only occur if the building is also listed at
a local level with a designation that has ‘‘teeth’’ or regulatory status, as regis-
tries of many smaller jurisdictions do. However, historic preservation, when
seen as a method to save buildings from demolition and promote reuse, is
extremely limited as it omits the majority of buildings that lack this type of
elevated historic, cultural, or architectural significance. Common and every-
day buildings that sit on the edge of significance or lack any of these values are
therefore considered insignificant, supporting the argument by early preser-
vation theorists that those with ‘‘authenticity’’ and ‘‘integrity’’ are the only
types of buildings worthy of preserving.
The last quarter of the twentieth century reflected a slight shift in this
perspective in architectural history studies across the United States. Typi-
fied in academia through the field of vernacular architecture studies, critical
inquiry into the significance of buildings shifted away from the study of the
formal and the elite towards the commonplace and the communal. Vernac-
ular architecture studies sought to find meaning in artifacts, such as build-
ings, and can best be defined as ‘‘the study of those human actions and
behaviors that are manifest in commonplace architecture.’’14 Rather than
using books as the primary source for architectural history, as was the tra-
dition, vernacular scholars used buildings as their fields of study and moved
away from the formal study of architectural form to the study of change and
use of buildings over time. This ‘‘meaning in artifacts’’ approach has slowly
shifted perspective in how the built environment is valued, and opened up
broader perspectives of architectural significance. Scholar and art historian
Dell Upton summed up Riegl’s early perspective as ‘‘a cherished regard for
the maker’s intention.’’15 Upton felt this traditional approach to buildings
and history was static and unrelated to contemporary use, which he felt
should be more dynamic in nature. Searching for this sense of authenticity,
he wrote, implies a singular moment in time, and the search for the ‘‘maker’s
intention’’ prevents the multiplicity of meanings an artifact or building can
attain.16 Cultural geographer David Lowenthal likewise observed that cur-
rent preservation practices were limited by preferring the intact artifact to
a modified one. He further argued that each generation needed to renew its
heritage not only through stewardship of existing buildings, but also by
adapting and changing them for present needs. ‘‘To appreciate our past to
its full extent,’’ he said, ‘‘we must acknowledge that heritage is a living and

14. Thomas Carter and Elizabeth Collins Cromley, Invitation to Vernacular Architecture:
A Guide to the Study of Ordinary Buildings and Landscapes (Knoxville: University of Tennessee
Press, 2005).
15. Dell Upton, ‘‘Tradition of Change,’’ Traditional Dwellings and Settlements Review 5, no.
1 (1993): 9-15.
16. Upton, ‘‘Tradition of Change.’’

This content downloaded from

128.227.114.24 on Sat, 04 Jan 2020 20:14:56 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 [RE]EVALUATING SIGNIFICANCE & 77

flexible body that needs continuous revision and addition to remain healthy
and vibrant.’’17
Although vernacular scholarship contributes to a broader definition of
significance and value in the built environment, historic designation is still
limited in what it can and cannot protect under criteria of significance based
on integrity, authenticity, and historic value. As a result, many perfectly use-
able extant buildings disappear without consideration of their intrinsic cul-
tural, community, and environmental value. These are mostly vernacular
sites—those associated with the everyday actions of human behavior and
commonplace events—and are houses, apartments, corner stores, ware-
houses, and commercial strips. Culturally, they represent places people live,
work, play, and make community. They embody the culture of place, repre-
sent individual histories, and promote continuity between generations.
Although some of these buildings can be recognized if nominated to the
National Register for Historic Places (a purely honorific listing which does
not safeguard the building from future demolition) or to local landmark
commissions that protect them, these represent a small percentage of the
building stock. Additionally problematic is how and why a building gets des-
ignated, as the process varies widely. In most cases it requires an individual or
group to provide the laborious work to nominate a building for historic des-
ignation status, and then a historic commission decides whether or not it
meets their level of significance for designation. Each landmark decision
reflects each commission’s interpretations of the criteria, and thus designation
varies widely. This type of preservation is at best piecemeal and irregular.

Emerging Values in Sustainability

Outside of historic preservation designations, little framework exists to

preserve existing buildings. The decision to reuse or demolish an old building
is never one that comes easily. As discussed above, the primary reasons for
saving buildings in the past centered on their historic and cultural worth. Yet
buildings also have vast amounts of environmental value that results from
their complex extraction, construction, and use. Although valued as historic
artifacts, buildings are also environmental artifacts and repositories of valu-
able energy and resources. Until very recently, building reuse has not been
understood as a valuable component of sustainable building practice. Since
the beginning of the ‘‘green building’’ era that began over two decades ago,
the term has almost always referred to new buildings. ‘‘Green building’’ is
broadly defined and often misunderstood. The Environmental Protection
Agency defines ‘‘green building’’ as, ‘‘the practice of creating structures and
using processes that are environmentally responsible and resource-efficient

17. David Lowenthal, ‘‘Prizing the Past for the Present and the Future,’’ keynote speech,
University College of London Department of Geographers, June 2011.

This content downloaded from

128.227.114.24 on Sat, 04 Jan 2020 20:14:56 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
78 & THE PUBLIC HISTORIAN

The US Energy Information Administration data illustrates that the US commercial building
stock pre-1920 performs at the same level as buildings from 2003. (Graphic by author.)

throughout a building’s life-cycle from siting to design, construction, opera-

tion, maintenance, renovation and deconstruction.’’18 More specifically, it can
refer to efficient building envelopes, passive or efficient heating and cooling
systems, rainwater harvesting, and sustainably harvested materials or recycled
content in building materials. More often than not refers to new construction.
Although these factors are essential for sustainable building, they do not
represent a complete picture of sustainability. New construction may dem-
onstrate an immediate energy savings in building operations, but it does not
necessarily result in a more sustainable building, as new construction requires
a significant amount of new materials and energy. Outdated perceptions of
older buildings as being poor energy performers have also created the common
misperception that newer buildings are more ‘‘green.’’ Many older, existing
buildings not only can be retrofitted with new green technologies, but in many
cases, already perform as well or better than new buildings due to their inherent
passive designs that preceded mechanical heating and cooling systems. Accord-
ing to a study by the US Energy Information Administration, the US pre-1920
commercial building stock performs at the same level as buildings from 2003.19
When a building is torn down, more is lost than the built resource and its
associated heritage. Buildings are great repositories of ‘‘embodied energy,’’
which is defined as the energy spent to extract, transport, manufacture, and
construct a structure.20 When constructed, every building can be considered

18. US Environmental Protection Agency, ‘‘Green Building,’’ http://www.epa.gov/green

building/pubs/about.htm
19. United States Energy Information Administration, ‘‘Commercial Buildings Energy
Consumption Survey (Cbecs),’’ 2003, http://www.eia.gov/consumption/commercial/data/2003/
20. Some building and environmental scientists have been dismissive of the embodied
energy approach to quantifying the environmental value of buildings because they consider the
energy a ‘‘sunk cost.’’ The argument is that there is no inherent current or future energy savings

This content downloaded from

128.227.114.24 on Sat, 04 Jan 2020 20:14:56 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 [RE]EVALUATING SIGNIFICANCE & 79

to have a significant energy ‘‘debt,’’ and the concept of embodied energy is an

attempt to quantify and measure one significant part of this debt.21 The
concept of measuring energy embodied in materials first gained widespread
recognition in the late 1970s, and the field of historic preservation was central
to the early studies. A database inventory created in 1967 by researchers at the
University of Illinois became an important basis for the study of embodied
energy in buildings.22 With the publication of this information, the Advisory
Council on Historic Preservation (ACHP), the federal oversight organization
for historic preservation, commissioned a study on embodied energy and his-
toric buildings completed in 1979 entitled Energy Conservation Benefit of
Historic Preservation: Methods and Examples. The report had two primary
goals. The first was to provide methods for determining the energy conserva-
tion aspects of renovating existing and historic buildings, and the second was to
demonstrate the results of the application of these methods to actual examples.
One of the most valuable outcomes of this study was translating the envi-
ronmental value of a building into tangible measurements of energy.23 For
example, the study concluded that the energy equivalent of eight common
bricks was equal to the energy of one gallon of gas. Additionally, the study
calculated that an average 50,000 square foot commercial building embodies
approximately 80 billion British Thermal Units (BTUs, a measurement of
energy), or the equivalent of 640,000 gallons of gas—enough energy to drive
a car an average of 12,000 miles a year for 1,333 years. The values were then
applied to actual buildings, including the Grand Central Arcade building in
the Pioneer Square district of Seattle. The ACHP calculated that to construct
a new building of equivalent size would require 109 billion BTUs of energy,
but preserving it would save 92 billion BTUs. The study also translated the
building’s embodied energy into various representative energy forms: 730,000
gallons of gasoline; the annual greenhouse gas emissions from 1,241 passenger
vehicles; 6,490 metric tons of CO2; the carbon sequestered annually by 1,384
acres of fir forests; or the greenhouse gas emissions avoided by recycling 2,185
tons of waste instead of sending it to the landfill.24 Later studies attempted
-
associated with preserving a building, because the energy expenditures needed to create
a building occurred in the past, as did the environmental impacts associated with creating the
building. This approach has given new attention to the ‘‘avoided impacts’’ method to under-
standing buildings’ environmental value, which measures the impacts that are avoided by not
constructing new buildings in the first place.
21. Jean Carroon, Sustainable Preservation: Greening Existing Buildings (Hoboken, NJ:
John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2010).
22. The research in this study is still one of the most thorough examinations of building
materials to have been produced on embodied energy, although it was developed for new and
existing building materials in the 1967 construction industry. ‘‘Energy Use for Building Con-
struction,’’ in United States Department of Commerce, Bureau of Census, 1967 Census of
Manufacturers, Vol. I & II (Washington, DC: United States Government Printing Office, 1971).
23. This study was the basis for the calculations done for Building 18 in Magnuson Park.
24. Booz, Allen & Hamilton, Inc., Assessing the Energy Conservation Benefits of Historic
Preservation: Methods and Examples ([Washington, DC:] Advisory Council on Historic Preser-
vation, 1979). The National Trust for Historic Preservation (NTHP) used the data in a subsequent
study entitled New Energy from Old Buildings in 1981. The NTHP book included several chapters

This content downloaded from

128.227.114.24 on Sat, 04 Jan 2020 20:14:56 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
80 & THE PUBLIC HISTORIAN

similar quantifiable values of buildings, assessing embodied carbon rather than

the energy embedded in buildings. For example, a 2006 British study, New
Tricks with Old Bricks, found that if an existing home was demolished and
rebuilt to higher energy efficient measures, it would take between thirty-five
and fifty years to recover the embodied carbon lost from the demolition and
rebuilding of the new home before environmental benefits of the energy effi-
ciency were seen.25
Although studies of embodied energy and embodied carbon are important
contributions to the science of measuring the environmental value of build-
ings, recent scholarship suggests that the most accurate way assess the value of
a building is through the ‘‘avoided impacts’’ approach. This measures the
negative environmental impacts avoided by not demolishing and constructing
a new building. In this approach, life cycle assessment (LCA) is used to
evaluate the potential environmental and human health impacts associated
with products and services throughout their life cycles, beginning with raw
material extraction and including transportation, production, use, and end of
life treatment. LCA is useful to help identify opportunities to improve the
environmental performance of building products at various points in their
respective life cycles as well as inform decisionmaking during the design and
construction process.26
Although additional studies have previewed similar results,27 the most
extensive LCA-based analysis on existing buildings was done in 2011 by the
Preservation Green Lab (PGL), a small think-tank of the National Trust for
Historic Preservation. The 2011 report, entitled The Greenest Building:
Quantifying the Environmental Value of Building Reuse, was a comprehensive

-
on energy conservation in old buildings, including a thorough assessment of embodied energy in
buildings.
25. In 2006, a group called the Sustainable Energy Research Team (SERT) at the University
of Bath in the United Kingdom created a comprehensive study to assess the embodied carbon in
building materials, with the intent to assess the overall embodied carbon in buildings. The re-
sulting study, Geoff Hammond and Craig Jones, ‘‘Inventory of Carbon and Energy (ICE),’’ drew
data from secondary resources, including books, conference papers, and Internet charts. The
inventory cataloged over two hundred common building materials and measured their embodied
primary energy and carbon. The report found that, when embodied CO2 was considered, a new,
energy-efficient home took up to 35–50 years to recover embodied carbon over an existing home,
and that the reuse of the empty homes could yield a savings of 35 tons of CO2 per house if new
homes were not constructed. The same study found that, even though the perception is that new
homes are more efficient, older, historic homes could be four times more carbon efficient than
new ones.
26. The National Trust for Historic Preservation’s Preservation Green Lab, The Greenest
Building: Quantifying the Environmental Value of Building Reuse (Seattle: Preservation Green
Lab, 2011).
27. In 2006, the University of British Columbia studied the environmental impacts expected
from the replacement of one of their campus buildings, the Buchanan Building. The research
concluded that reusing the Buchanan building would result in major environmental savings. The
final assessment was that the net carbon emissions savings for the replacement building would
begin only after thirty-eight years of use. See: Andrew Cortese, ‘‘Life Cycle Analysis of UBC
Buildings the Buchanan Building,’’ University of British Columbia Social, Ecological, Economic
Development Studies (SEEDS) Student Reports, 2009.

This content downloaded from

128.227.114.24 on Sat, 04 Jan 2020 20:14:56 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 [RE]EVALUATING SIGNIFICANCE & 81

two-year study that measured five building types, each with scenarios of
retrofit and demolish-and-rebuild using LCA tools.28 The idea behind the
study was to understand the avoided environmental impacts achieved through
building reuse and retrofit, rather than by demolishing and rebuilding new
buildings. Using a LCA methodology, the PGL study The Greenest Building
compared the relative environmental impacts of building reuse and renova-
tion versus new construction over the course of a seventy five-year lifespan of
six building types. The key findings were that building reuse usually yields
fewer environmental impacts than new construction when comparing build-
ings of similar size and functionality. The study concludes that it takes ten
to eighty years for a new building that is 30% more efficient than an average
building to overcome, through efficient operations, the negative climate
change effects of the construction process.29 Although more research needs
to be done in this area, these studies illustrate there are considerable carbon
savings and avoided impacts on the environment with building reuse and
retrofit over demolishing and building anew.
Building value can also be assessed by the negative environmental impacts
created by demolition. Although recovery and recycling of building material
from demolition has increased significantly in the industry, 40% of all landfill
waste is attributed to building debris or construction and demolition (C&D)
waste.30 According to the Environmental Protection Agency, the building
industry contributes 136 million tons of C&D waste to our landfills each year,
about two-thirds of all nonindustrial solid waste generation in the United
States.31 The average building demolition yields 155 pounds of waste per
square foot, while the average new construction project yields 3.9 pounds
of waste per square foot of building area.32
This increase in waste has a profound adverse impact on our landfills.33
Diverting landfill waste through demolition recycling is a positive practice, yet
it is still not a national industry standard because it is often cost-prohibitive,
not locally available, or simply not done. Recycling rates reported by the
construction industry and government agencies tend to overstate how much

28. National Trust, ‘‘The Greenest Building.’’

29. The only exception of benefit was the warehouse conversion; such a conversion required
so many new materials that it had too high an impact in two of the environmental categories,
ecosystem quality and human health.
30. US Environmental Protection Agency, ‘‘Municipal Solid Waste Generation, Recycling,
and Disposal in the United States Facts and Figures,’’ 2008); US Environmental Protection
Agency, ‘‘Characterization of Building-Related Construction and Demolition Debris in the
United States,’’ 1998.
31. EPA, ‘‘Municipal Solid Waste.’’
32. Linda Monroe, ‘‘Diverting Construction Waste,’’ Buildings, March 1, 2008.
33. Seattle, which is known as one of America’s ‘‘greenest cities,’’ currently runs a one-mile-
long train six times a week to a massive landfill in Arlington, Oregon, near the Columbia River.
This train features one hundred cars, twenty-five of which are filled with demolition waste from
buildings. With current estimates, this means that 7,800 train cars filled with construction debris
are sent to a massive landfill each year, with a bill to the City of Seattle that extends to 225 million
dollars for construction debris alone. Kathy Mulady, ‘‘Where Your Seattle Trash Ends Up: And
You Thought Taking out the Garbage Was a Big Chore,’’ The Seattle Post Intelligencer, July 2007.

This content downloaded from

128.227.114.24 on Sat, 04 Jan 2020 20:14:56 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
82 & THE PUBLIC HISTORIAN

The Laundry Supply Building in Seattle was recently renovated using new, innovative Outcome-
Based Energy Codes, which allow more flexibility for retrofits based on actual performance,
rather than current energy codes that can be troublesome for existing buildings. It also met
LEED™ Platinum certification, the highest standard for green building. (Photo courtesy of
author.)

debris is saved from landfills. Old buildings typically contain hazardous ma-
terials like asbestos insulation or items covered in lead paint. That hazardous
waste is hauled away to specialized landfills before demolition begins, and
often isn’t even counted in recycling statistics.34 Building material recycling
has valuable environmental benefits on many levels yet it still it doesn’t solve
the primary problem of resource extraction and the building sector’s appetite
for newly extracted raw materials as well as the energy that is consumed
building new structures. Recycling also typically results in what is called
‘‘down-cycling,’’ the process of recycling into lower-value products. That
means new construction keeps consuming new, high-value materials like
concrete and lumber, requiring additional energy consumption and resource
extraction. A recent study by the National Trust’s Preservation Green Lab
concludes that it takes ten to eighty years for a new building that is 30% more
efficient than an average building to overcome, through efficient operations,
the negative climate change impacts related to the construction process.

34. [1] ‘‘Construction Debris: Where Seattle’s Old Buildings Go to Die,’’ John Ryan, nar-
rator, KUOW Seattle Public Radio, January 10, 2013, http://kuow.org/post/construction-debris-
where-seattles-old-buildings-go-die

This content downloaded from

128.227.114.24 on Sat, 04 Jan 2020 20:14:56 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 [RE]EVALUATING SIGNIFICANCE & 83

Existing Buildings and the Role of Design

Throughout history, building reuse has been common and widespread.

Before the dawn of the modern era in the nineteenth century, when it
became increasingly common to demolish entire buildings and replace them
with new, modern ones, the idea would have been inconceivable and imprac-
tical. From pre-historic times through the Roman Empire until contemporary
times, creative, accretive layering of new building over existing structures has
been the norm. Historically, there have been three primary reasons for work-
ing with and reusing buildings. The first reason was practical. If replacing an
old building with a new one was too expensive, or not seen as worth the
financial or time investment, the old one was kept in use. The second reason
is historic value; a community deems a building worthwhile to be protected
from demolition by landmark status because of its association with something
or someone significant in the past. The third reason is political; the belief that
after an existing building is demolished, a less desirable new building or use of
the space would replace it. Whereas the first reason is as old as the act of
building itself, the other two are results of modern preservation and planning
law.35
Measuring the value of energy and avoiding impacts from a building sug-
gest a fourth reason for reusing an existing building—an environmental one.
Evaluating buildings through a balanced agenda of cultural and environmen-
tal value presents a new viable methodology to understand their total value.
It can assist in the complex decisionmaking process that determines which
buildings should be considered for preservation or adaptive reuse, or even
determine those that should be demolished.
One of the greatest opportunities for solving such dilemmas is in the field
of design. Architects, trained as complex problem-solvers, are uniquely posi-
tioned to create new, sustainable buildings from existing ones. In The Social
Life of Small Urban Spaces, William Whyte wrote, ‘‘Architects and planners
like a blank slate. They usually do their best work, however, when they don’t
have one. When they have to work with impossible lot lines and bits and
pieces of space, beloved old eyesores, irrational street layouts and other such
constraints, they frequently produce the best of their new design—and the
most neighborly.’’36 The generation that saw the emergence of the ‘‘Bilbao
Effect’’ and a rise of what Witold Rybczynski referred to as the favoring of the
‘‘glib and obvious over the subtle and nuanced’’ may in fact produce the best
work—both environmentally and culturally—with the existing building as
a design site, while layering new environmental design solutions over existing,

35. Frank Peter Jager, ed., Old & New: Design Manual for Existing Buildings (Basel,
Switzerland: Birkhauser Verlag, 2010), 7.
36. William Hollingsworth Whyte, The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces (Washington, DC:
Conservation Foundation, 1980).

This content downloaded from

128.227.114.24 on Sat, 04 Jan 2020 20:14:56 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
84 & THE PUBLIC HISTORIAN

The Kolstrand Building in Seattle is just outside the Ballard Historic district, yet its renovation on
a formerly desolate stretch of the neighborhood has spurred revitalization of the community. As
the building is designated as a non-historic structure, the architects of the Kolstrand Building
could play with the front façade, extruding windows out the front to create interior window ‘‘boxes’’
along with adding energy efficient window systems. Historic regulations generally restrict the
front façades from being altered in such dramatic ways, yet the design here creates an exciting
dynamic between the old and the new fabric of the building. (Photo courtesy of author.)

richly layered textures of the past.37 This concept produces an evolving theory
of design that moves from the modernist conception of the blank site and
single authored building to the layered design approach of multiple narratives
over time. Therefore, existing buildings that are rehabilitated for future use
become like the environment itself: adaptable, dynamic organisms of change
and continuity.

37. Witold Rybczynski, ‘‘The Bilbao Effect: Public Competitions Don’t Necessarily Produce
the Best Buildings,’’ The Atlantic Monthly, September 2002.

This content downloaded from

128.227.114.24 on Sat, 04 Jan 2020 20:14:56 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 [RE]EVALUATING SIGNIFICANCE & 85

Reframing the sustainability discussion around the reuse of existing build-

ings posits a new definition of sustainable development that might also be
considered a radical perspective: Reusing existing buildings is a critical com-
ponent of sustainable development that requires fundamental changes in the
way we consider buildings’ value and significance. Through the sustainable
retrofitting of our existing buildings, two fundamental and critical elements of
our built environment are united: historic and environmental conservation. In
order for this to be successful, interdisciplinary collaboration is essential. The
preservationist’s role in the redesign of existing buildings is invaluable to
maintaining both environmental and cultural significance. Their knowledge
of building repair and maintenance must cross over into the design disciplines
so that longevity and durability can integrate into all phases of building, and
a true integration of design and preservation can contribute to the making of
buildings. Architects can engage in a design dialogue between past and pres-
ent using their knowledge of material and energy use, program, and design
aesthetic.
Environmentalism is as critical as preserving our history is necessary. How
these two imperatives work harmoniously together for a sustainable, livable
future is the challenge that presents itself across the disciplines. Borrowing
from Jane Jacobs in The Death and Life of Great American Cities, ‘‘Old ideas
can sometimes use new buildings. New ideas must use old buildings.’’38

Kathryn Rogers Merlino is an Associate Professor in the Department of

Architecture at the University of Washington where she teaches architectural history,
theories of adaptive reuse, vernacular architecture studies, and architectural design.

38. Jane Jacobs, Death and Life of Great American Cities (Random House, Inc. New York,
1961).

This content downloaded from

128.227.114.24 on Sat, 04 Jan 2020 20:14:56 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms