Twenty-first century sustainable performance for mid-century modern: Fid-Bau Portal

Twenty-first century sustainable performance for mid-century modern

Smith, Z

Mid-Century Modern buildings form an important part of our architectural heritage, and comprise a significant fraction of today’s overall building stock. However, many buildings of this era consume more energy than comparably sized buildings constructed before or since. Simply replacing all such buildings with new construction does not make sense architecturally, economically, or in terms of the carbon emissions associated with extracting and refining the materials used for construction. Instead, the challenge is to perform renovations and ‘deep energy retrofits’ that preserve the best qualities of buildings of this period while providing improved comfort at reduced energy consumption. By thinking in terms of ‘carbon payback’ – where cumulative lower annual emissions for an efficient building pay back the one-time emissions associated with renovation and construction, we can map out a path to minimize global emissions over the critical period between now and 2050, as utility electric production transitions to low carbon sources. Case studies show that these can make sense not just for buildings deemed of high architectural significance, but for ‘low road’ buildings as well.