Companies We Keep by John Abrams

Companies We Keep by John Abrams

Author:John Abrams
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: ebook, book
ISBN: 9781603581400
Publisher: Chelsea Green Publishing
Published: 2011-01-28T05:00:00+00:00


Buildings That Age Well

Once I took my mother-in-law, a surgeon, to tour some of our houses. As we headed home she said, "You know, I've spent my life working my fingers to the bone to help and save people. But all the work I've done will soon be gone. What you do is lasting. It remains here forever."

I wish she were right. I didn't have the heart to tell her that most houses built in this country barely outlive their mortgages. Some of her patients will last longer.

The only thing we know for sure about buildings is that they change over time. Uses change, configurations are altered, finishes are updated. Parts wear out. Systems degrade and need replacement. New technology must be incorporated. We try to think of our buildings the way landscapers think about landscapes. No landscape is ever completed when it is first created. It develops and matures over time. What if we made our houses the same way? Let's plan many possible ways to expand and alter our houses. Let's create forms that easily accept additions. Let's frame in the door to the future addition, bay window, and extra skylight, and let's plan for the built-ins. Let's imagine future solar collection and leave plenty of unobstructed south-facing roof area. Let's expect that extra dormer in the roof. Let's build certain walls so that they can easily be removed to open up spaces as needs evolve, and let's use engineered floor systems that don't need bearing walls. If we do this work well, we will enable these houses to develop as a landscape does. In a decade or two or five, house and landscape will be very different from what they were when they were first occupied.

Stewart Brand, author of How Buildings Learn, the seminal book about what happens to buildings after they are built, demonstrates that the only buildings that last are buildings that are loved. These are the buildings that are maintained and carefully readapted over time as different occupant needs develop. If we make buildings that are beautiful and functional and easy to maintain, operate, and change, they stand a better chance of being loved. We have now maintained, altered, and renovated some of our buildings for a quarter of a century. We learn from them every day. We keep a small crew busy repairing and doing small alterations and additions to the buildings we have built. They serve as an important feedback loop, telling us what's working and what's not.

In a book called The World Without Us—which is, as the title implies, about what would happen if humans suddenly disappeared from the planet—author Alan Weisman says,



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