Guest Editor: Satu Huuhka (Tampere U)
Abstract submissions closed on 7 October 2022
Is it environmentally, economically, socio-culturally more sustainable to extend buildings’ lives or to build new? What are the specific challenges, potentials, and contributions for retaining existing buildings as opposed to their demolition and replacement? What are the drivers for the demolition of buildings? How can a more sustainable approach be created? How can retention and adaptive change be applied in different conditions and different scales (buildings, neighbourhoods, building stocks)?
Demolition / deconstruction has so far mainly been approached as a technical undertaking of engineering. Building preservation is primarily framed as historic conservation i.e. rarity, architectural quality, historic role, etc). Social scientists (e.g. Gilbert, 2009) have criticised mass-replacement policies and the consequences for underprivileged people who are dislocated. There has been relatively little problematisation both in- and outside of academia whether and when demolition should be performed, apart from Thomsen et al. (2011) and the RetroFirst campaign in the UK by the Architect’s Journal (2019).
The special issue will explore why demolition occurs with the aim to understand its environmental, socio-economic and cultural drivers, potentials and consequences, as well as policy and practices pertaining to avoiding demolition at different scales – supra-urban (country/region), urban (city/neighbourhood), building stock and building scale. How can planners and other stakeholders compare alternatives for densification without demolition i.e. by extending and infilling? What drives the replacement of existing buildings with new ones, what are the wider environmental, economic, and socio-cultural impacts on the sustainability of cities, and whether short-term financial gain is too privileged compared to other concerns. Submissions are welcomed that examine these phenomena in the different contexts of shrinking/growing communities. Contributions that explore the impacts of demolition from various viewpoints and multiple perspectives (urbanism, urban planning, obsolescence, resource efficiency, mass flows, embodied carbon, social value, etc.) are particularly welcome.
Most of the developed world’s future cities already exist: most of the existing building stock will remain for decades if not centuries to come. However, in the sustainability discourse, the long-lasting nature of buildings is rarely celebrated. Older (domestic and non-domestic) buildings tend to be seen either as a problem and a threat, e.g. a contributor to climate change due to their allegedly excessive use of energy or, if they are heritage buildings, as being themselves threatened by the changing climate. Recently, new knowledge has emerged that challenges this perception, suggesting that older can potentially outperform new build as highlighted below.
First, as the focus is shifting from buildings’ operational energy consumption towards whole life carbon impacts, there has been a growing acknowledgement of embodied emissions (e.g. Röck et al. 2020). New build is inherently disadvantaged in this regard, as an existing building avoids further embodied emissions and waste generation. Second, the decarbonisation of energy supply is reducing the emissions from the in-use phase (Kuittinen & Häkkinen 2020), thus further increasing the significance of the embodied emissions.
Third, many existing buildings may already perform better than is the regular preconception (Sunikka-Blank & Galvin 2012) and there may be potential to reduce their consumption even further.
Fourth, due to differing temporal dimensions in which embodied and operational emissions are released, life cycle extension typically outperforms new build in the near future, i.e. in the timeframe most crucial to climate change mitigation (Heinonen et al. 2011).
Fifth, the existing economic arguments for demolition and rebuilding are contentious. Life cycle extension is typically more affordable for tenants, but redevelopment can create greater profits for the developer. Redevelopment increases property prices which often impacts negatively on affordability by displacing existing people and businesses. Not all incurred environmental, social and financial burdens are accurately converted into costs in our present economic system.
At the neighbourhood and urban scale, demolition of existing low- and middle-rise areas is often done to increase density. Denser urban structures in well-connected areas are believed to contribute positively to sustainability. However, the CO2 impacts for the two alternatives are rarely quantified in a satisfactory manner to account for embodied (both buildings and infrastructure) and operational (buildings and traffic) emissions and how they accumulate over time.
There is a pressing need for a wider and deeper understanding, but making comparisons is complicated and data intensive. Researching demolition and the prospects for its avoidance are further complicated by difficulties in accessing relevant data. Cadastral data on demolition is usually fragmented, not centrally collected and maintained, and/or lacks detail. Thus, different approaches and methods are needed in different contexts depending on the existence, availability and quality of data.
The suggested topics for this special issue include, but are not limited to:
Dynamics of demolition vs. preservation on the building stock level
Impact assessment
Approaches and methods on the building level
Policies, tools and skills
You are invited to submit an abstract for this special issue. Please send a 500 word (maximum) abstract to editor Richard Lorch richard@rlorch.net by 07 October 2022. Your submission must include these 3 items:
Abstracts will be reviewed by the editors to ensure a varied, yet integrated selection of papers around the topic. Authors of accepted abstracts will be invited to submit a full paper (6000-7500 words), which undergoes a double-blind review process.
Buildings & Cities is an international, open access, double-blind peer-reviewed research journal. Its focus is the interactions between buildings, neighbourhoods and cities by understanding their supporting social, economic and environmental systems. More information can be found online: www.buildingsandcities.org & published papers are found here: https://journal-buildingscities.org
Buildings & Cities is an open access journal and has an article processing charge (APC) of £1200. If you do not have institutional support, please contact the editor when submitting your abstract. We endeavour to assist those without funding.
If you have a question, please contact:
Richard Lorch
or Satu
Huuhka
Abstracts due |
07 October 2022 |
|
Full papers due |
15 February 2023 |
(NB: authors can submit sooner if they wish) |
Referees’ comments |
15 April 2023 |
|
Final version due |
June 2023 |
|
Publication |
October 2023 |
(NB: papers are published as soon as they are accepted) |
Abrahamson, D.M. (2016). Obsolescence: An Architectural History. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN: 9780226478050
Architect’s Journal. (2019). RetroFirst. https://www.architectsjournal.co.uk/news/retrofirst
Gilbert, P. (2009). Social stakes of urban renewal: recent French housing policy. Building Research and Information, 37, 638–648. https://doi.org/10.1080/09613210903186638
Heinonen, J., Säynäjoki, A. & Junnila, S. (2011). A longitudinal study on the carbon emissions of a new residential development. Sustainability, 3, 1170–1189. https://doi.org/10.3390/su3081170
Kuittinen, M., & Häkkinen, T. (2020). Reduced carbon footprints of buildings: new Finnish standards and assessments. Buildings and Cities, 1(1), 182–197. http://doi.org/10.5334/bc.30
Röck, M., Saade, M.R.M., Balouktsi, M., Rasmussen, F.N., Birgisdottir, H., Frischknecht, R., Habert, G., Lützkendorf, T., & Passer, A. (2020). Embodied GHG emissions of buildings – The hidden challenge for effective climate change mitigation. Applied Energy, 258, 114107. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apenergy.2019.114107
Sunikka-Blank, M. & Galvin, R. (2012). Prebound effect: the gap between performance and the actual consumption, Building Research and Information, 40(3): 260–273. https://doi.org/10.1080/09613218.2012.690952
Thomsen A., Schultmann, F. & Kohler, N. (2011). Deconstruction, demolition and destruction. Building Research & Information, 39(4), 327–332, https://doi.org/10.1080/09613218.2011.585785
Thomsen, A. & van der Flier, K. (2011). Understanding obsolescence: a conceptual model for buildings. Building Research and Information, 39(4), 352–62. https://doi.org/10.1080/09613218.2011.576328
Thomsen, A., van der Flier, K. & Nieboer, N. (2015). Analysing obsolescence, an elaborated model for residential buildings. Structural Survey, 33(3), 201–27. https://doi.org/10.1108/SS-12-2014-0040
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Y Lu, C Girling, N Martino, J Kim, R Kellett & J Salter
Transformational climate actions by cities [editorial]
K R Slater & J B Robinson
Heat stress: adaptation measures in South African informal settlements
J M Hugo
The urban expansion of Berlin, 1862–1900: Hobrecht’s Plan
F Bentlin
Common sources of occupant dissatisfaction with workspace environments in 600 office buildings
T Parkinson, S Schiavon, J Kim & G Betti
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