[Greenbuilding] 500 year old house

[Vadurro, Rob, EMNRD]

Andy Foldes wrote:

Please forgive if this has been discussed already, I have not been here
that long. In my own musings about someday building a house, I am
inclined to imagine it as a structure that will last centuries. While
that may strike some as bizarre, it seems quite obvious to me, having
traveled enough to see people very happily living in five hundred year
old farmhouses or palazzos in southern Italy built in Michelangelo's
day. What could be greener than that?

 

The usual response from the green building community is to build for a
very long time to gain as much use out of the embodied energy of the
materials as possible. One observation I would like to ask the listers
what you think about is the fact that what I see around here in New
Mexico that most, if not all, the little towns contracting and sporting
derelict buildings aplenty. Many are (once) beautiful stone or adobe
built to last for hundreds of years, now un-used and in ruin. It's kind
of sad seeing these "new urbanist" patterned towns with natural,
enduring materialed buildings going un-used. The "best" cases are when
nearby on the outskirts, new WalMarts, motels, etc. are being put up
instead. The fact of the matter is, human settlement patterns change
often and drastically, at least here in the new world. One can build for
the ages, but it is likely as not that such longevity will be
unappreciated. I don't think that means to build cheaply with toxic
materials that disintegrate in 50 years or so. I think it means building
so that the structure can gracefully return to the earth (adobe, straw,
stone, wood) or be disassembled and reused or recycled where a new
structure or settlement is being built. A building built to be adaptable
sounds nice, but around here it is most likely going to be in a location
that nobody wants to be anymore, eventually. What is the "green"
strategy for that kind of use?

 

Rob Vadurro AIA LEED AP

 



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