It’s the first time in the 20 years the AIA has collected this data that renovations have breached 50%. In 2005, toward the end of a pre-recession building boom, renovations made up approximately one-third of billings. That share has been increasing steadily since 2017, when it was 44.4%, up to 52% this year. Kermit Baker, the AIA’s chief economist, says that the last time the market for design services was so heavily weighted toward renovations was likely during the Great Depression. — Bloomberg
According to Baker, about 25% of renovation projects constitute interior remodels, while adaptive reuse schemes make up another quarter of those registered with the AIA. Just 3.8% are done in the interest of improved building energy performance, with a scant 1.6% being resiliency projects. The article also mentions the organization's estimate that only 10% were undertaken "as a result of the pandemic" in spite of the prevailing industry narrative.
Data centers are unsurprisingly leading the renovation charge, followed by office upgrade projects aimed at luring back remote workers ("There’s almost a perfect correlation between what sectors are the strongest and where there was the most renovation activity," according to Baker.)
"Buildings are just getting older," he explained further, pointing to demographic causes. "Our economy is growing more slowly, our population is growing more slowly. We just don’t need as many new buildings as we did 20, 30, 40 years ago."
Read more about Kermit Baker's take on the post-pandemic economy in our recent interview feature, The Pandemic Exposed Deep Flaws in the Architecture Profession — But Also Inspired Remedies.
1 Comment
Is it refurbishing/upgrading existing data centers or adaptive reuse to renovate old buildings into data centers? My sense was most data centers are typically greenfield/new builds?
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