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A review by jocelyn
How Buildings Learn: What Happens After They're Built by Stewart Brand
4.0
This book helped me think about buildings in many ways I'd never considered before. This should be required reading for architects, anyone interested in urbanism, and especially anyone in a facilities role at a company. I'll quote the author's summary of the book:
"The argument goes as follows. Building are layered by different rates of change. Adaptation is easiest in cheap buildings that no one cares about and most refined in long-lasting sustained-purpose buildings. Adaptation, however, is anathema to architects and to most of the building professions and trades. And the gyrations of real-estate markets sever continuity in buildings. The building preservation movement arose in rebellion, deliberately frustrating creative architects and the free market in order to restore continuity. Focus on preservation brought a new focus on maintenance and respect for humble older buildings brought investigation of their design wisdom by vernacular building historians. The same kind of investigation can be made of the persistent change, mostly amateur, that occurs in contemporary houses and offices.
With that perspective backward in mind, it is possible to rethink perspective forward and to imagine designing buildings that invite adaptation. Doing it right requires an intellectual discipline that doesn't yet exist. The study is worth undertaking because, more than any other human artifact, buildings excel at improving with time, if they are given the chance.
And they are wonderful to study. All dressed up in layers of dissimulation, buildings are so naked."
"The argument goes as follows. Building are layered by different rates of change. Adaptation is easiest in cheap buildings that no one cares about and most refined in long-lasting sustained-purpose buildings. Adaptation, however, is anathema to architects and to most of the building professions and trades. And the gyrations of real-estate markets sever continuity in buildings. The building preservation movement arose in rebellion, deliberately frustrating creative architects and the free market in order to restore continuity. Focus on preservation brought a new focus on maintenance and respect for humble older buildings brought investigation of their design wisdom by vernacular building historians. The same kind of investigation can be made of the persistent change, mostly amateur, that occurs in contemporary houses and offices.
With that perspective backward in mind, it is possible to rethink perspective forward and to imagine designing buildings that invite adaptation. Doing it right requires an intellectual discipline that doesn't yet exist. The study is worth undertaking because, more than any other human artifact, buildings excel at improving with time, if they are given the chance.
And they are wonderful to study. All dressed up in layers of dissimulation, buildings are so naked."