[Greenbuilding] Open Building

[David Bergman]

When researching for my book, I found 
surprisingly little in print or online. Tedd 
Benson seems to be the primary advocate, at least 
in the US. See http://bensonwood.com/innovation/whitepaper2003.pdf.

It's more conceptual than what I think you're 
looking for, but here's a link to the 
illustration we created for my book, based on a 
combination of Benson, Stewart Brand and Philip 
Proefrock's writing on the idea. 
http://cyberg.com/building%20layersnew.jpg . Here's my accompanying text:

Durability or Planned Obsolescence?

In light of the amount of material and embodied energy
invested in every building, a clear element of sustainability
is ensuring that it has a long life. With few exceptions
(such as temporary structures), building for durability is
one of the basic tenets of ecodesign. But creating a structure
that will endure over the years is not just a matter
of designing it with long-lasting materials. One perhaps
obvious point: the building must be valued by those who
use it. If the design does not result in a building that functions
well and is pleasing, then it is likely to be renovated
or demolished sooner.

If a building is to last, then it needs to be able to adapt
to changes in usage, technology, and cultural patterns. In
other words, it needs to be durable and flexible. “Design for
deconstruction” is one way to achieve flexibility and provide
for the eventual need to replace the building. The industrial
design world has for a while been at work on design for
disassembly (DfD, which can also stand for design for deconstruction).
One high-profile example involves the office chair;
several manufacturers have engaged in a kind of competition
to design the chair that can be disassembled the fastest
and with the fewest tools. The objective is to make recycling
more economically viable by designing so that materials are
readily separable at the end of the product’s life.

Buildings, of course, are more complicated than
office chairs. And they should last longer—or at least parts
of them should. Stewart Brand, in How Buildings Learn,
describes how buildings should be thought of as having
six layers, ranging from the site, which is timeless, to the
skin and structure, which may last generations, to furnishings
that are frequently changed.6

The application of this concept has become known as
open building, and it can lead to a fundamentally different
way of understanding buildings in which these layers are
independent.7 To a degree, modern offices do this already
with non–load bearing, demountable partitions and
mechanical cores. But more often than not, an office renovation
or a home remodel involves brute force removal
(destruction, really) of building materials. Imagine if the
walls of our homes were built so that wiring and plumbing
could be easily accessed for repairs and modifications—
without cutting holes in walls, perhaps without encountering
obstacles, and then without patching and painting
(or, for instance, if windows could be replaced without
entailing interior and exterior damage). The key lies in
separating the layers so that the less durable layers can be
altered without interfering with the others.

Open building also relates to the concept of futureproofing:
designing and constructing buildings to anticipate
the future. If, for instance, PV panels are not in the
budget but may be added eventually, run conduits to the
roof and provide support structure so that the panels and
wiring can be accommodated later with minimal disruption
and cost. Similarly, a gray-water system may not be
allowed by current code, but if you provide the necessary
plumbing at the outset, it can be implemented by simply
opening a valve when the code catches up.


David Bergman  RA   LEED AP
DAVID BERGMAN ARCHITECT / FIRE & WATER LIGHTING + FURNITURE
architecture . interiors . ecodesign . lighting . furniture
bergman at cyberg.com    www.cyberg.com
241 Eldridge Street #3R, New York, NY 10002
t 212 475 3106    f 212 677 7291

author - Sustainable Design: A Critical Guide
adjunct faculty - Parsons The New School for Design

At 12:26 PM 3/2/2012, Jason Holstine wrote:
>Can anyone point to a nice succinct resource on 
>Open Building techniques?  The idea that the 
>walls are built without the conduits inside, so 
>they can be more easily maintained, changed, 
>moved, deconstructed, etc?  Thanks.
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