How buildings learn I What happens after they’re built

by Stewart Brand

A critical Review
by Signe Ganz, Thomas Wendt and Jinwei Yang

Heritage & Architecture Graduation Studio I “The Modern Mall” I AR3AH105 I 9.9.22

INTRO

Author

The book we are going to discuss with you today is How Buildings Learn by Steward Brand and
was written in 1994. Brand studied design at San Francisco Art Institute and his point of view is
highly critical of the entire modernist approach to architecture.
He fully rejects the "center out" approach of design, where a single person or group designs a
building for others to use.
Brand stresses the value of an organic kind of building, based on four walls, which is easy to
change and expand and grow as the ideal form of building.

Chapter 1-5

Theory of the book

The book starts with pointing out that a building has a life on its own and that normally we study
buildings in space, but not in their whole appearance in time. That’s why this book is about the
question “How does a building learn and what happened with it over the time”. Already in the
beginning of the book the author gives a very vague answer to this questions and with that a teaser
of what the book will be about. He says that buildings adapt best, when they are constantly refined
and reshaped by changing cultural currents, changing real- estate value and changing usage.
Additionally, the owner of a house plays one of the biggest roles in such a change because there
are a lot of interventions made by it. Every homeowner wishes to have a nice quality building so
they leave their improvements of the building for the next generation of house owners. Therefore
buildings gain character and individuality with every decade. So every time we deal with
buildings we deal with decisions taken long ago.

Starting points

The starting points of Steward Brand are that almost no buildings adapt well. That is because they
are not designed to adapt in a matter of budget, construction, maintenance, tax ect.. But all
buildings (except monuments) adapt anyway. There are two reasons for that.

Concept

The first one could be called the “Continuous Flow”. It means that our society is constantly
changing. For example, when servants disappeared from houses, kitchens were growing and
servants' rooms were not necessary anymore so they were rented out.

The second reason is called the “Three Irresistible Forces”, which means that new Fashion, Money
and new Technology is influencing the buildings.
Some buildings adapt to these circumstances in a very good way and some in a very poor way.
Good developments are called “The High Road” by the author. Buildings that do not adapt that
well are called “The Low Road”.

Low Road buildings are usually very easy buildings, like old factory halls, in which changes have
been made very quickly and dirty. People feel more free in these kinds of old buildings because
they have the opportunity to build their own place, often without even asking for permission from
the contractor. They often say: “Do whatever you want. It can't get worse.”
→Example: “Building 20” at MIT – It is a 250.000 m2 wooden structured building left over from
WW2 and was thought of as a temporary building. But because of its simplicity it was used for a
variety of exhibitions. Unusual flexibility made the building ideal for laboratory and experimental
space. The use of the building changed over time and the horizontal layout encouraged people to
interact with each other. Because of its different usage, constructions had to be built quickly and
dirty.

In High Road Buildings every change in a house is thought through very well, so the house could
reach perfection throughout the years. Time and a steady supply of confident house owners that
also wanted to reach perfection are some basics that give High Road Buildings their character.
Therefore it can be said that High Road Buildings are the opposite of Low Road Buildings.

At that point another Typology of buildings with the name “No Road” needs to be mentioned. It
mostly describes buildings that were built after World War 2. Steward Brand describes them as
‘Impressive and useless’. The problem is that for decades architects thought they were artists. The
problems of “art” as architectural aspiration come down to these:
- Art is proudly non-functional and impractical.
- Art reveres the new and despises the conventional.
- Architectural art sells at a distance.

After World War 2 the architects were lost and came up with a lot of different shapes for
buildings, like domes.These shapes started leaking and were not comfortable for their owners. The
author stated that architects just think about the skin and not about the solutions anymore.

In the book, the author gave a lot of examples for these three building types and showed a lot of
intervention categories with the buildings accordingly.

Intervention categories

Steward Brand expanded Duffy’s “four S’s” and came up with a “six S’s” scheme. It shows the
connection of all parts of a building. According to the author the most important thing in adapting
is that a building has to allow differences but also connections between these six categories. And
by that he means the Site, Structure, Skin, Service, Space plan and Stuff - where all the
interventions happen.

The first one is the SITE and the author describes it as an element that stays for an eternal time.
He states that within a city for example it is almost not possible to completely change the layout
but what you can change and what also changes on its own is the program/purpose of structures
within the city.
→Example: Amphitheater in Lucca( Italy). When the empire died and the entertainment stopped,
people moved into the obsolete structure and made their homes and shops there. Over the
centuries all of the original structure was replaced, but its outline persisted in the property lines.
The center of the oval eventually became crowded with buildings. The space was reopened into a
piazza in the 19th century, the better to attract tourists to the ghost amphitheater.

STRUCTURE stands for the foundation and load-bearing elements that last up to 300 years.
→Example: The US Soldier’s home– Structure always stays the same even though the Skin
changes.
Another intervention category is the SKIN, which changes almost every 20 years with the
improvements of technology and the need for space.
→Example: St. Charles Street – A lot of turnovers of tenants happened and during the time a full
floor was added on top of the building, extensions to the side were made, stucco was added and
the windows got replaced.

SERVICE changes every 7-15 years and describes the whole technology in a building, such as the
sprinkler systems, heating and elevators.
With the arrival of water service and electricity, the two most renovated rooms in all houses were
the kitchen and bathroom. The kitchen, for example, has migrated from a back corner to the
middle of home life, while stoves, refrigerators, and sinks are frequently replaced.
→Building in Santa Fe (New Mexico):
1935: Appliances were layered on each other: originally large fireplace, contrivance is added,
stove was build into the fireplace, water heater was added
1991: A soda fountain and booths dominated the Space plan of the then called K. C. Waffle house

The SPACE PLAN (walls, ceilings, floors and doors) changes every 3 years. The reason for that
is that every house owner needs different things and spaces in a building. So what they do is break
through walls, exchange windows for air supply, build new walls and extend the space.
→Factory Building in Sausalito: With the growth of the company the floor plan got changed a lot
according to what the company needed at that moment

Another intervention category is called STUFF. Stuff – furniture, paintings and decoration gets
changed daily to monthly because the tenants want their space to be cozy and practical.
→A good example for that is the Treaty Room in the White House. It is connected to the Oval
Office and has been changed by all the American presidents.

Lastly there is another intervention category that is not mentioned in the “Six S’s” of Steward
Brand but is shown in a few examples throughout the book: It is when the Skin stays but the
inside changes by improvements.
→Example: the Boston Athenaeum. It needed two additional floors and a basement in 1915
because more storage room was necessary. But because they didn’t want to change the appearance
of the outside, they changed the building from the inside. If you would pass the Athenaeum it
would still look like a two storey high building from the outside but in 1990 you could count 10
floors inside.

Chapter 6: Unreal Estate

In this chapter the author explains how buildings are shaped by the larger community after that
they are build. As he says in the beginning of the chapter: “Every building leads three
contradictory lives—as habitat, as property, and as a component of the surrounding community.”
The factor of the surrounding community leads to the building learning from its environment.

To explain his point, Brand continues on the previously stated six shearing layers a building is
made up from. From these six he states that ‘Site, Structure, Skin and Services’ are shaped by the
larger community and makes the building learn over time.

Site. The community exercises great influence on the build environment by deciding property
lines. The author states that the size of the lot can determine the amount of individual control,
variety, pedestrian activity, and gradual change in a neighborhood.

EXAMPLE – Consolidating lots alter urban change from steady and small to sudden and large—
from adaptive to convulsive. Kann’s Department Store on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington,
DC, grew from its corner building on the left, gradually taking over the adjoining buildings until it
absorbed the Saks building on the right corner. After bankruptcy preservationists tried to save the
old commercial buildings, but a 1979 fire attributed to arson forced demolition.

Structure. Building codes for structure are a manifestation of people learning: form follows
failure. Building codes give a minimal standard for constructing. However, these minimal
standards often result in mediocrity and block creativity.

Services. The community rules a building how it handles services. All service companies managed
by different bureaucracies. As for transportation the same principle holds. Joel Garreau’s Edge
City has the key insight: “Cities are always created around whatever the state-of-the-art
transportation device is at the time.”

Skin. The market value of a house is not determined by how well it works, but how it looks in the
context of the neighborhood. The degree of institutionalization of real estate value over use value
prevents buildings from getting better with time. Real estate has vastly more influence on the
shape and fate of buildings than architectural theory or aesthetics.

The author continues on the influence of real estate on the built environment. Mortgages make
ownership easier and serves long term responsibility and maintenance. However for the user it
mostly consists of paying interest with the risk of quick-buck speculations.
Turnovers are the next problem for a building’s learning curve. Homes are occupied by new
owners every 6 to 8 years. Each new owner remodels the place to their likings which makes it
impossible for a building to learn with the constant change.

Chapter 7: Preservation: A Quiet, Populist, Conservative, Victorious Revolution

In this chapter the author discusses preservation. How it has become the best carrier of that moral
force architecture needs if it is to have value beyond shelter. The author begins that old buildings
save money because fixing up an old building costs significantly less than building a new
construction. Even when there is a negative gap, the government steps in for cultural arguments.
The reason being that rehabilitated old buildings can revive neighborhoods with tourism playing
its part in this as well.

Besides money and status, the author stated that widespread preservation activities make a country
rooted in its own history, culture and place. With preservation finally finding its way into the law
of the USA, a national registry of historic buildings was set up. This came with tax benefits that
would aid approved rehabilitation and made federal money flow. A lasting effect of the booming
business was that an intelligent set of guidelines was set. These guidelines had to be met for tax
benefits.

In the ongoing debate of preservationists hiccups are to be met. Some kinds of buildings are
impossible even for ardent preservationists to find new uses for, usually because they are too
specialized or too large.

EXAMPLE – As discussed in previous chapter, it is impossible for a building to get a gradual

Chapter 8: The Romance of Maintenance

In this chapter the author discusses importance of maintenance on the learning curve of a building.
Preservation and maintenance are closely related. He states that three things change a building:
markets, money, and water. However the importance, the amount of maintenance has decreased
over the years due to longer work hours of homeowners, and shorter attention spans to decline.
Once the attention of new building owners is deferred, maintenance slacks with it.

The author states two points which prevents building dilapidation: preventive maintenance, and
designing and constructing so that the building doesn’t need a lot of maintenance. The longer
buildings are expected to last, the more maintenance costs build up. Better construction is less
maintenance so less costs.

These statements are followed by an analysis of building components and their need for
maintenance. The author states that the most important and most vulnerable organ of the building
is the roof. The effectiveness of the roof is determined by: pitch and shape, detailing, materials,
and lastly its looks.

He concludes that maintenance is learning. That it’s hard work, costs and no reward. But that there
is a certain high calling in the steady tending to a ship, to a garden, and to a building.

Chapter 9: Vernacular: How Buildings Learn From Each Other

In this chapter, the author largely praised how vernacular buildings are built. As he said in the
book, ‘Vernacular design is always prudent about materials and time, seeking the most pragmatic
building for the least effort and cost. It provides an economical grammar of construction.’

The author further explains how the vernacular buildings grow and change according to people’s
different function needs using the example of the semi-medieval “whale houses”. We can clearly
see the changing process from the pictures that it went from just one tiny house in the 17th century
to eventually the “connected farms” in the mid-19th century.

The author also thinks folk architecture appears to be unified, homogeneous, and even identical.
However, on closer inspection, they are rich, diversified, and individualistic. Built within a similar
structure allows the designer to focus on the skillful solution of particular problems instead of
reinventing whole forms each time. In the meantime, the building does not lose its individuality as
every building’s problems are different.

Apart from architecture, the author admires the bright ideas of normal individuals. An example
would be the ‘ranch houses’ designed by May Cliff. He noticed that Americans love showing off
their car, therefore, innovatively stopped hiding the garage in the back of the house. Though May
never went to architecture school and never got a license, his ranch-style house became one of the
most popular house styles in the country and even attracted the admiration of Frank Lloyd Wright.

In the end, the author also warned us that native adaptivity got left behind when the vernacular
form was translated into the "vernacular" style. Like what the pictures show many restaurants and
hotels try to mimic the Santa Fe style. However, they are just decorous buildings without the
original integrated traditions of the local environment and culture.

Chapter 10: Home Function Form: and Melts Satisficing Office

In this chapter, the author uses the home and office, the two spaces most closely related to
people’s daily life, to analyze how they changed throughout time.

He pointed out that the credo “form follows function" was a beautiful lie. Form froze function.
Function melts form.
For example, reality-based change is constant and relentless. Babies arrive, become kids, become
older kids, leave; dependent aging relatives arrive, die; money comes, money goes; divorce
hovers; careers change: everybody keeps on maturing in their tastes and activities.

A more specific example would be the change of garage use in American Houses. The ranch
house followed the trend of having no cellar or attic. But people’s need for storage space kept
increasing and eventually, all the spare stuff wound up in the garage, pushing the car back out on
the street.

A building can be stillborn if it is too thoroughly finished and fitted out and isn't given a chance to
respond to the life moving into it. Because our way of life is constantly changing as Families
shrank, servants disappeared, and cars arrived. Telephones changed homes and the connectivity,
television it again, even demanding its own room.

Therefore houses evidently need more low-definition space for later expansion, and it's easier to
add in than add on.

This idea also applies to office buildings. He punished that Interior designers are never satisfied.
They are paid to optimize, to make perfect. "All redecorations seem, when new, to be perfect and
permanent solutions."

One example to show is the failure of the “smart building” in the early 1980s. which integrates all
the control systems of a building and offers tenants a full menu of built-in information services.
He pointed out people wanted to solve just one primary problem and acted as if the problem
would hold still over time. These were classic cases of over specificity: over centralized control,
and tight-fit.

Chapter 11: The Scenario-buffered Building

In this chapter, the author introduced a tool called scenario buffered to use as a design tool to
avoid the problems mentioned before.

The iron rule of planning is: whatever a client or an architect says will happen with a building,
won't.
The rest of the iron rule is: whatever you are ready for, doesn't happen; whatever you are unready
for, does.

Like programming, scenario planning is a future-oriented formal process of analysis and decision.
Unlike programming, it reaches into the deeper future-typically five to twenty years- and instead
of converging on a single path, its whole essence is divergence.

One example would be office buildings that only seek narrow wishful futures. They wired the
whole building with fiber optic cable so they would be ahead of the game when broadband
technology comes online. But what really happened, in the end, is that office technology
developed toward wireless instead.

Scenarios can provide a way around some of the major design errors that commonly occur with
buildings.

Another approach is devising an "adaptive" strategy that is exceptionally alert to changing events
and can adjust quickly. Postponing some of the design yields more building or less money since
less is spent on detail design and detail finish.
Chapter 12: Built for Change

In the last chapter, the author suggests we should have the mindset of building for future change
and stop being too focused on the fashion and technology of the present time. He compares the
temptations of being in fashion are similar to the mortgage temptation-buy too much now, pay too
much later.

Apart from doing adaptive design, he also mentioned a new building needs a complete and
accurate record of itself for the future designer and user.

Conclusion

This book gives us instructive and innovative knowledge of how buildings change. Furthermore, it
uses a lot of clear and easy-understanding examples and diagrams that relate to the concept
mentioned in the book. It allows architects to rethink buildings which are not just a space and
finished product but constantly refined and reshaped by their occupants.

An adapted state is not an end state. A successful building has to be periodically challenged and
refreshed, or it will turn into a beautiful corpse.