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GREEN
BUILDING
Foe or Friend of Historic Preservation
 At
the August Landmark Commission meeting, a property owner requested permission
to put a standing metal seam roof on a house in a historic district, citing
the material’s green–friendly effects. The material was not
appropriate for the neighborhood and the commissioners denied the request.
This is not a case of historic preservation impeding a property owner
trying to go green, but it alludes to the decades–long debate between
historic preservation and environmental design.
Actually, preservationists and proponents of green building agree on
the fundamentals: the reuse of existing buildings is one of the highest
forms of sustainable design, demolition wastes natural resources (both
the original materials and the energy used to construct them), and traditional
building methods used in historic buildings take advantage of passive
heating and cooling systems, which reduces energy costs. Most historic
buildings were constructed with the climate in mind—houses such
as the Alfred and Juanita Bromberg House (1939), above, by architects
O’Neil Ford and Arch B. Swank, provided breezes and shade in the
summer, and absorbed heat during colder months.
While advocates of both accept these fundamentals to be truths, most
historic buildings have a low rating on the green chart. This is because
the system used to certify a building green was not devised with historic
buildings in mind. For instance, the Leadership in Energy and Environmental
Design (LEED) gives a mere three points out of a total of 69 for reusing
an existing building. Furthermore, LEED does not consider embodied
energy, or the energy it takes to create, harvest, transport, or
install raw building materials. LEED also does not take into account the
cost of demolition, transportation of debris, or land fill waste. The
result is that many historic buildings do not receive high or even medium
grade marks in efficiency, which gives the false sense that historic buildings
are not green–friendly.
In the last two years, there has been increased discussion and even conferences
on how to resolve some of these issues. The National Trust for Historic
Preservation, the American Institute of Architects, and state and local
preservation organizations are working with environmental design groups
to develop a new version of LEED that will better address the contribution
of historic buildings to the green movement. We look forward to the improvements
and increased dialogue.
Katherine D. Seale
Executive Director |
