👋 Hi pals, Josephine here with a quick note about this edition…
This is Real Green Estate’s first newsletter series: a 3-part exploration of the UK’s historic buildings, written by the brilliant Lydia Loopesko.
Lydia is a fellow climate friend and is passionate about the potential of historic buildings to mitigate emissions from the construction sector.
Part two (this article) inspires us to think how our architectural gems can serve as modern-day catalysts for our green future.
Ending with part three soon! Here’s part one.
Part 2: Using historic structures to inspire future adaptation
Modernism and the rise of cheap, high-emitting buildings
Following the Industrial Revolution, another housing boom came after over 3 million houses were damaged or destroyed during the Second World War. As a solution to efficiently housing large populations, architects began looking up and the first tower block was open in 1951. Contrary to the small Victorian terrace, many of these tower blocks were giants built of concrete and glass. The proliferation of electric lighting meant that flats could extend further into a building’s interior with fewer windows, which were relegated to one side of the flat. The few windows limited ventilation and instead made the flats dependent on the building’s central heating and an assumption of a cheap energy supply. Unlike their predecessors, these buildings were built with cavity walls making buildings much more air-tight; ventilation was therefore only provided from windows, a significant problem during increasingly hot summer months.
The 1960s saw the rise of brutalism, and with it the increasing use of concrete. Brutalism is so named for the use of ‘beton brut’ or plain concrete and was widespread across Europe. These buildings ushered in a new age for concrete which still remains the most popular building material in the world. Concrete has a high thermal mass, which helps it retain its temperature: i.e. like the stone it mimics, it warms up slower in the summer and vice versa. This quality makes it perfect for isolating a building from its environment, and a significant improvement from draughty Victorian terraces, and thanks to central heating it allows us to live in a more comfortably. Unlike stone, however, concrete does not last forever, and many brutalist buildings across the country are in desperate need of repair. These buildings are no longer in fashion and are facing threats of demolition. Yet fashion is ephemeral, and time may still bring these buildings back in favour. Plus, their repair is an important step in avoiding emissions that come from demolishing and rebuilding.
Over time, with the advent of cheap central heating and better insulation, buildings have become stylish cocoons rather than adaptative. Of course, the luxury of keeping warm in winter and cool in summer is a welcome technological advancement, but it has also made us loose our connection with the environment. Historic buildings may have been draughtier, but they allowed their inhabitants to adapt their behaviour to the climate, something we will need to do more of as the climate changes. It’s a question of changing our expectations of how a building should be used. Wearing more clothes in winter, heating individual rooms, and adapting our tastes to opt for climate-friendly over stylish could go a long way. Historic buildings should not only be used to remind us of the past; they should be used to inspire us for the future.
Using traditional architecture to adapt to climate change
As the world warms, heating a building will become less relevant than keeping it cool, and the energy from the increasing use of air conditioning in summer will become the more important factor. Despite centuries of adapting buildings to their climate, the arrival of air conditioning has driven architecture toward styles that are not conducive to their environments. Moreover, modern styles have a preference towards large windows and open spaces which are harder to thermoregulate. In places accustomed to high summer temperatures, homes were traditionally built to remain cool. In Spain, for example, homes have an inner patio, which stays cool with the help of plants and fountains, and the narrow streets stay shaded. As a contrast, modern high-rises built of concrete and glass boil under the hot summer sun. No better example is that of India, where for a long time the use of concrete and glass was seen as a status symbol. Compared to traditional thatch roofing which traps air and earthen walls that naturally remain cool, concrete absorbs heat and traditional intricate window shades, as opposed to glass windows, provide air flow.
But we need not look so far away for tips on how to adapt to summer temperatures. As we saw in Part 1, traditional architecture has been developed over thousands of years to adapt to its climate with a building’s layout made to maximise climate adaptation. Historic buildings therefore show us a different way to live. To survive recent heatwaves in the UK, many people closed the curtains and windows in the south-facing part of their Victorian terraced-houses and opened the doors to the north and thus were able to keep relatively cool. On the contrary, residents of poorly ventilated tower blocks struggled in the 2022 heatwave.  It’s a matter of doing like we did in the past: adjusting our behaviour and tastes to match the climate.
Looking forward, the UK Climate Change Committee names behavioural change as one of three key factors for reducing the emissions from the building sector, alongside increasing energy efficiency and finding alternatives to fossil fuels. Historic buildings can address all three of these recommendations. They give us the opportunity to better adapt our behaviour and architectural tastes to be climate friendly, and as we will see in part 3, they can be retrofitted to become more energy efficient while avoiding the use of the high-emitting materials used in construction.
Part 3 on its way!