Recycling Buildings: Titanic Mill
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 03.25.07
Last evening we discussed building preservation and re-use with Catherine Nasmith, one of Toronto's leading preservationists, publisher of Built Heritage News and former chair of the Toronto Preservation board. She noted how important it is to save older buildings as part of the texture of our cities, and also how much more resource-efficient it is to renovate rather than replace. However there is often concern that one cannot make an old building as energy-efficient and green as a new one.
Coincidentally, this morning we learn of a project in the UK where a huge1911 woolen mill, built the same year as the launch of the Titanic is being converted into condos, and that the building well be completely carbon free. "All Titanic Mill’s heat and a high proportion of its electricity will come from a Combined Heat and Power unit, or CHP. This will be fuelled using various species of tree cuttings, chipped to create a biomass fuel. The sustainably-managed trees undergo a regular period of growth each year, allowing wood to be harvested in a continual cycle. During the growth process the trees extract CO2 from the atmosphere in sufficient volumes to balance the CO2 which is released when wood is used as fuel." It also has 400 KW square metres of photovoltaics and rainwater harvesting.
Unfortunately this mill appears to be in the middle of nowhere near the town of Huddersfield, and the site plan shows it surrounded by a sea of parking, so while the building may be carbon neutral its residents probably won't be. ::Titanic Mill via ::Observer
As an Architect and a passionate environmentalist I always cringe when I here people refer to old buildings as non-green and non-energy efficient, this is correct if your talking only about conditioning space. Many times I hear people talk about making green architecture and that old buildings can't be green or are less green, but we must remember the life-cycle of these buildings. I have seen over many years that the harder I try to make green architecture the more I rely on the older ways of building, in the days before central heat and air. These older buildings are not tight they have cracks that let in air, these air cracks server a very important purpose they allow the building to breathe. If you take a closer look at these buildings they have fewer problems with mold and mildew
In most cases these buildings are positioned in such a way to provide maximum passive ventilation/heating. So the argument that old buildings are bad has to be examined closely, sure asbestos is bad and not all old buildings are designed with such care but if we carefully examine what has seemed to be lost to designers we would find that our ancestors were not so naive and dumb.
Large stone structures can be very green. They keep cool in the morning during summer, and don't cool off too much in winter. With a good HVAC design and advanced thermal sensors, heating and cooling cylces can be designed that take advantage of the buffering effect of stone walls.
Thermal gain is a very important part of masonry architecture, most older stone buildings are situated on a site in such a way as to ensure maximum heat gain which is blocked during the day and radiated back into the space at night. But I must question the reliance on HVAC systems in architecture. Technology is a solution but I dont believe its the answer.
I spent an extended period of time in the lower south during the hottest portions of the summer months in a unair-conditioned home that was passively designed. I must say that for the first few weeks of my stay I was miserable and wished for the cool comfort of a conditioned building, but the longer I worked without the conditioning the more I realized that I was becoming accustom to the conditions and that I was actually enjoying the temperature changes. After two months of work and research I was perfectly comfortable in the house even electing to lower some windows at night. It was then I realized that it is us, as a human race that have created this horror of design that we must maintain 70 degrees or we are miserable. In fact the human body works less effectively when we maintain this constant. I will say that upon my return to my conditioned dwelling I was shocked to realized that it was too cold and that it was very uncomfortable to come from 90 - 100 degree outside air into 65-70 degree interior. I will also add that after a week back in my air-conditioned house I was sick with a horrible head cold. Since my wife and I have learned to live with greater temperature swings, in the winter we put sweaters on and in the sumer we open all windows, I still turn the AC on in the heat of summer but I have reduced my cooling bills and heating bills on average 500 dollars a year. No to mention lessening the impact on our environment. So lets not rush to technology to solve our problems but look inward and adjust our lives first.
I found it! Here's the satelite image: LINK HERE.
Definitely rural! But despite car dependency, it's a pretty neat idea, I think
That's not it Nick, this is: LINK HERE.
Not quite so rural, but not exactly town-centre either...
"During the growth process the trees extract CO2 from the atmosphere in sufficient volumes to balance the CO2 which is released when wood is used as fuel."
?
Doesn't this mean that CO2 is only temporarily sequestered in a tree, and that no net CO2 is removed from the atmosphere if it's burned, thereby making this an empty boast?