The Cuyahoga County Planning Commission's Weblog recently posted that Donovan Rypkema of Place Economics had mentioned that "reusing structures is the best way to save energy and called historic preservation 'the ultimate in recycling'" when he spoke at the Cleveland Restoration Society 34th annual Community Luncheon.
You can listen to the summation on NPR here.
Choice quotes:
"Much of the green building movement focuses on the annual energy use of a building, but the energy embodied in the construction of a building is 15 to 30 times the amount of its annual energy use."
"Part of the major components of new buildings, plastic, steel, vinyl, aluminum. What are among the MOST energy consumptive materials? Plastic, Steel, Vinyl and Aluminum."
This seems a tad bit ironic as the County plans to dispose of the Cleveland Trust Tower (possibly mentioned here before) in order to replace it with a new "green" building. I am sure there are plenty of arguments as to why it should be taken down but it does seem a little strange to suggest that it is more environmentally friendly to remove a 29 story building without a specific example of how. I think that if the County could, in some way, demonstrate why they would need to demolish the building to replace it, it could make their argument much more substantial and might go a long way towards furthering their "green, progressive" image rather then creating another example of how North East Ohio demolishes evidence of its past success.
No image, I am sick of posting images of this building. Besides, I have more coming anyway.
Here is a link to the actual post, in case you didn't believe it was there.
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