A brief history of sustainability…hey you at the back I saw you yawn!!

I really don’t like presentations that begin by defining a word and then turning it into a lecture but having said that lets define sustainability. Google says is a noun and then has two definitions: -

1-The ability to be maintained at a certain rate or level "the sustainability of economic growth" or

 2-Avoidance of the depletion of natural resources to maintain an ecological balance "the pursuit of global environmental sustainability"

 In my opinion it’s a verb, a doing word not a naming word, and I define it as ‘the ability to endure’.

Enduring means to last, survive, live on and it’s because I define it like that that I believe that history is the best guide to sustainable design that there is. While LEED raised awareness as did Al Gore and the world’s climate scientists, it is precisely the ability to last that determines how sustainable something is.

I also skipped over the first Google definition above but if the item you design cannot endure economically then its won’t last. A typical building taken over its whole life has first costs around 2% of the total life cycle, around 7% for operation and maintenance over a 30-year life and over 90% for the costs of the people it was built for. These are shocking statistics for many reasons but notably that buildings are designed to last only 30 years.

In Europe clients and codes use around 50 years as the life of a building and assume major maintenance every 10 years.

In the context of endurance this is not a long time, after all the Pyramids have endured over 4500 years. But why do codes, the Federal Government, Cities and States drive solutions that are almost entirely focused on reducing the cost of the 7%, often by increasing the cost of the 2%?

Endurance is not about energy savings. Doing the right thing to lower cost in use is just good design not sustainability.

Imagine for just a moment that you were asked to design a building to endure, what would you do?

Well there are some obvious answers to this. You would immediately consider a longer life leading to more durable materials, you would also see flexibility for unknown future uses as important and you would disaggregate elements so they can easily be replaced based upon reaching the end of their intended lifespan.

Let’s say we pick 200 years for the life of the building. In that timeframe we would want the structural frame to last that long but to have to ability to open up the floors to link spaces, we know the MEP systems and the weather systems won’t last that long so we would design them to be replaced on a cycle in a way that disrupts the users the least possible. We may use modular bathroom pods so we can replace them in a day when we need do so and have systems for changing spaces simply, click in place demountable partition walls, flexible ventilation systems that can easily be reconfigured and many other design ideas that come with the choice of timeframe.

I hope we would see the need for closer tolerances as caulking and joint sealers need to be eradicated as they don't last long and mask poor quality workmanship, we would avoid drywall because of the dust and water and mess it makes when installed and changed.

Economically over the 200-year life the initial cost would fall to say 0.2% due to the extended value, the operational costs should be less because churn and upgrades would be designed in from the outset.

Material chemistry would be become important so that we design with the least degradation possible and we would have to genuinely consider the impact of climate on the design and not hope it won’t happen and cross our fingers. We live in world where nature constantly fights to destroy what we build. She is relentless, her timescale is endless and yet we give her unreinforced masonry on liquefiable soil in seismic zones and foundation systems that will fail in floods and silicon seals that can’t survive the weather for more than a few years.

No matter that one day Cities will be eco-systems and buildings will be manufactured and click together like Lego, until we design for higher quality and design in ways to change spaces easily we will not create sustainable designs.