Demolition is a lazy form of maintenance

Demolish? Prove first that there is nothing else to do, writes Jan Willem van de Groep in this episode of Sightlines. "Mistakenly, renovation on a spreadsheet often loses out."

Demolition is still too often presented as a logical step. A building no longer satisfies, the function changes or operation declines: we start over. In non-residential construction, this is routine; in housing associations, an explicit choice.

However, demolition is rarely a logical step. It is the easiest path: the lazy form of maintenance. This is because we pretend to solve a problem, but in reality we are resetting the system. Everything that is already there is written off. Material, energy, history and structure disappear from consideration. What remains is an empty lot and a new business case that often looks better on paper.

That is, of course, no accident; we have set up the system that way. Whoever wants to renovate must demonstrate that it "can be done. Those who want to demolish rarely have to explain what will be lost. The destruction of capital and the environment is tacitly accepted. In short, the burden of proof is reversed. With housing corporations, it becomes apparent how arbitrary that choice sometimes is. Thousands of homes are disappearing while technically they still function perfectly well. Not because the shell is worn out, but because reality does not fit the calculation model.

A new building is uncluttered. Everything is clean, efficient and predictable. Renovation is messy. The existing shell forces creativity and the process is less linear. But therein lies the value. The shell is not a problem to be solved; it is an asset that has already been paid for. If you factor that in, you see a different reality. The biggest cost and the biggest environmental burden have already been incurred. The only question is how to redeploy that value. Maybe not perfect by new construction standards, but good enough for the long term.

Yet we put renovation along the yardstick of new construction and declare it unfeasible. Meanwhile, current events force us to take another look. The power grid is full. New construction requires new connections that often don't exist. Existing buildings already have that capacity. What first seemed like a limitation is now a strategic advantage. But renovation also threatens the reflex of the short cut. If we just electrify without reducing demand, we displace the problem. Then we replace material use with grid load.

We focus on investment costs, while the real value is in what we don't have to replace: materials, energy and quality of use. Renovation often wins there, but loses out on the spreadsheet. We need to turn it around. No longer ask whether renovation can be done, but demand that demolition be justified. Then it will become obvious how often the answer is "no.

About Sightlines

Sightlines is my way of taking the conversation about renovation in construction one step further. Not by shouting louder, but by looking more sharply. I write about what's going on under the surface: the assumptions, systems and choices that determine what we build and why. My ambition is to give direction to a sector that is always in transition, but unintentionally still thinks in old patterns too often. What systems are still holding back a construction that wants to be faster, more affordable and more future-proof? The author of this column is Jan Willem van de Groep.

Previous installments of Zichtlijnen can be found here.