Supported by a vibrant community of architects as designers and influencers, architecture is one essential and structural pier to our civilization. There are other essential piers that make up our built design, construction, and operation environment most notably those who pay for and occupy each of our creations. Their needs are what we respond to so creatively every day with our work but we also possess the often untapped power to influence their aspirations and business cases through public advocacy, supported research, organized education efforts, and in helping to inform their vision of what can be. A great many of us architects may be missing the chance to help change policies that have been widely reported to be counterproductive such as discounting energy performance, the burden of maintenance and repairs, and the durability of our completed work. While many in society look for ways to reduce the generation of climate warming gases like CO2 when building and operating buildings, we would do well to help stakeholders see that a built environment that lasts far longer than the 35, 50, or even 100 years predicted in recent decades would be a great and bankable achievement.
Much is being written and looked at anew with regard to building life cycles but even these efforts do not reach real aspirational goals. If we look back 1,000 years the life span of many buildings were about the same as they are today – no improvement in 1,000 years. However, the proven life span of many of those buildings turned out to be 1,000 years and going since some are still standing and many are still being occupied every day. 1,000 years from now we may see the same situation as many of our buildings designed for shorter lifespans actually lasted longer while others were replaced dozens of times in 1,000 years.
If our society’s investments in the built environment lasted far longer, such as infrastructure for instance, we would not be facing an insurmountable multi-trillion dollar infrastructure deficit in the US alone today. Much the same can be said for our buildings. Imagine if buildings lasted for many centuries or even millennia. Embodied energy and wealth would be preserved while the wealth to do what we must do to address climate change and the needs and advancements of society would be available instead of consumed with so many millions of building replacements. We probably do not have the power when we leap at the call to design a simple project somewhere to ask the owner to foot any part of the cost to create more durable designs but as a community of intellectual leaders we can support change in the policies of investment that currently do not support the far longer building life spans we have the capability to help deliver. In 2014 Fannie Mae published Estimated Useful Life Tables that show for instance that brick is expected to last 50 years and aluminum siding 40 years and so on. We should become familiar with how long stakeholders project our building elements should last since some designs have not lasted as long as even what is published but we should also be mindful that a great opportunity to preserve fiscal and carbon wealth is being missed when we overlook how very long our buildings could last and may indeed last.
There is and will be much work to do in the future to preserve and hopefully better our society. Wealth that is diverted to needlessly replacing buildings is the very wealth we need to do the bigger and better things ahead. The things we aspire to.