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I got this in my email today from Bill Burg and thought I would share it here. Its from a Speech by Donovan D. Rypkema titled Economics, Sustainability, and Historic Preservation.

“Razing historic buildings results in a triple hit on scarce resources. First, we are throwing away thousands of dollars of embodied energy. Second, we are replacing it with materials vastly more consumptive of energy. What are most historic houses built from? Brick, plaster, concrete and timber — among the least energy consumptive of materials. What are major components of new buildings? Plastic, steel, vinyl and aluminum ˆ among the most energy consumptive of materials. Third, recurring embodied energy savings increase dramatically as a building life stretches over fifty years. You‚re a fool or a fraud if you claim to be an environmentalist and yet you throw away historic buildings, and their components.”

As builders of Urban housing we believe in preserving as many structures as possible as well as preserving and reusing the infrastructure that is already in place.

Levi