I'm wondering what criteria you evaluate a building for demolition.
The Owen Lauder car park in Gateshead is up for the vote so I'm sorry to heterarchy abracadabra and Rita Novel.
I believe that the historical value of some buildings is dubious at best, and the replacements offered by Architects can often be worse that the replaced building(s).
I welcome images for critique. Maybe Paul could organise a vote if we can agree a shortlist...?
While I'm thinking destruction, building follies are often celebrated by the public while at best they provide an unessasary reference that often makes me whither. Demolish this shit and recycle the materials into something useful I say.
I happen to be partial to the restoration. While developers may say its cost effective to tear it down and rebuild, its true for certain guranteed price points at certain lending rates. My company prides itself on saving structure - thats about it. Think about it - how much were you going to just toss out? With ingenuity you can make gold out of it, without ingenuity you can only make some quick gold today. The key to it is "Skilled" labor.
I'd post some frame house before and afters but theyre not hosted on a server.
Jul 21, 05 6:13 pm ·
·
BOTS, I know that demolishion of many 1960s and 1970s buildings is inevitable, but, with the ease of digital photgraphy today, these buldings should at least be preserved with lots of lots of images. In many ways, I see the concrete hulks of the 60s and 70s as a rare moment in architectural history, and such sentiment probably won't be popular until most of them are gone.
agfa8x - sometimes you can make the building something else, it would seem new, look different, but have the same bones. So it would'nt be preservation of appearences, just structure and costs. The trick is to find people willing to work this way, there is a lot of risk in temporaryly shoring, jacking, bracing existing structures.
How about rehabilitation? Repurpose it, make it useful, pretty it up if you must, but stop tearing down buildings that are perfectly sound. It's a waste of time. It's a waste of money. It's a waste of resources.
Rita - I like the idea of using photography for documenting a space but nothing can capture that feeling of actually physically being there.
I have this book about many vanished buildings in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area.
The photos just aren't enough. I look at amazing 19th century structures that were lost to new urbanism, freeway expansion and neglect and I want to cry. We have replaced such ornamental and fascinating buildings with reflective glass sterility of the 1960's.
I'm not sure how people will view the architecture of the 60's 70's 80's in the future. I wasn't responsible for designing it but neither do I want to be responsible for destroying it because I may not like most of it. May we learn from the mistakes of architects before us and save our architectural history.
Tied to the latter is some consideration of the materials used in the building, the quality of their assembly, and their durability as materials.
If we design for partial disassembly, it would be much easier to repurpose part of the building, rather than destroy the entire thing and start over. Design with more loosely associated layers (shell, structure, interior, etc.) will allow the new owner to keep the outer layers and change the internal aethetic.
In my years of 'green demolition', we find that more durable materials make it through demolition and are ble to find an afterlife. Composit materials are generally not resellable. Cheap materials obviously break apart. Welds and glues are the absolute enemy of greenGoat. Screws rather than nails ... you get the idea.
Amy Bauman
greenGoat
Advocates for green demolition
Demolition vs. Restoration
British TV has given us restoration - link
Now we have Demolition - link
I'm wondering what criteria you evaluate a building for demolition.
The Owen Lauder car park in Gateshead is up for the vote so I'm sorry to heterarchy abracadabra and Rita Novel.
I believe that the historical value of some buildings is dubious at best, and the replacements offered by Architects can often be worse that the replaced building(s).
I welcome images for critique. Maybe Paul could organise a vote if we can agree a shortlist...?
While I'm thinking destruction, building follies are often celebrated by the public while at best they provide an unessasary reference that often makes me whither. Demolish this shit and recycle the materials into something useful I say.
I happen to be partial to the restoration. While developers may say its cost effective to tear it down and rebuild, its true for certain guranteed price points at certain lending rates. My company prides itself on saving structure - thats about it. Think about it - how much were you going to just toss out? With ingenuity you can make gold out of it, without ingenuity you can only make some quick gold today. The key to it is "Skilled" labor.
I'd post some frame house before and afters but theyre not hosted on a server.
BOTS, I know that demolishion of many 1960s and 1970s buildings is inevitable, but, with the ease of digital photgraphy today, these buldings should at least be preserved with lots of lots of images. In many ways, I see the concrete hulks of the 60s and 70s as a rare moment in architectural history, and such sentiment probably won't be popular until most of them are gone.
cost, structural integrity, historical value. not in any particular order.
demolish. who wants to live in a theme park?
just make sure that the new is better than the old.
Rita read the Guardian, 22 July 2005
agfa8x - sometimes you can make the building something else, it would seem new, look different, but have the same bones. So it would'nt be preservation of appearences, just structure and costs. The trick is to find people willing to work this way, there is a lot of risk in temporaryly shoring, jacking, bracing existing structures.
no restoration, let it die slowly if you you have to, but don't restore it.
instead of demolition, i would say hotrod it.
How about rehabilitation? Repurpose it, make it useful, pretty it up if you must, but stop tearing down buildings that are perfectly sound. It's a waste of time. It's a waste of money. It's a waste of resources.
Rita - I like the idea of using photography for documenting a space but nothing can capture that feeling of actually physically being there.
I have this book about many vanished buildings in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area.
The photos just aren't enough. I look at amazing 19th century structures that were lost to new urbanism, freeway expansion and neglect and I want to cry. We have replaced such ornamental and fascinating buildings with reflective glass sterility of the 1960's.
I'm not sure how people will view the architecture of the 60's 70's 80's in the future. I wasn't responsible for designing it but neither do I want to be responsible for destroying it because I may not like most of it. May we learn from the mistakes of architects before us and save our architectural history.
Cost and structural soundness.
Tied to the latter is some consideration of the materials used in the building, the quality of their assembly, and their durability as materials.
If we design for partial disassembly, it would be much easier to repurpose part of the building, rather than destroy the entire thing and start over. Design with more loosely associated layers (shell, structure, interior, etc.) will allow the new owner to keep the outer layers and change the internal aethetic.
In my years of 'green demolition', we find that more durable materials make it through demolition and are ble to find an afterlife. Composit materials are generally not resellable. Cheap materials obviously break apart. Welds and glues are the absolute enemy of greenGoat. Screws rather than nails ... you get the idea.
Amy Bauman
greenGoat
Advocates for green demolition
Demolition thru Neglect....it has been a trend for hundreds of thousands of years.
Signs of a leaky roof generally tell us that decay has been in effect for some time.
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