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editor
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 Posted: Tue Nov 21, 2006 11:27 am Post subject: Condo Maintenance & Inspection - Experts weigh in |
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WELCOME!
What do the experts say about building maintenance and inspections?
Building Maintenance & Preservation
A Guide to Design and Management
Second Edition
Hardcover
Edited by British genius Edward D. Mills
| Quote: | Much has changed in the world of building since the first edition of this book in 1980, but the relationship of Design to Building Maintenance is as important today as it was in the past. The efficiency, convenience, life span, economic viability and appearance of any building can be affected by decisions taken and actions performed at any time in the history of a building oproject, from its initial conception to its final demolition. Designers should involved in all these decisions, and their relationships with other participants is of vital importance.
... All buildings start to deteriorate from the moment they are completed and from that time begin to need maintenance in order to keep them in good condition. ... This process of gradual deterioration is inevitable, but the speed at which it proceeds can be regulated and the ultimate failure of the building, in whole or in part, can be avoided or acceldedrated according to the way in which it is maintained. This, in turn, is to a large degree conditioned by the amount, of maintenance required and the ease with which the essential work can be carried out. The problems of building maintenance concern client, architect and builder alike, and each can play an important role in minimizing the maintenance needed in a completed building.
... Maintenance planning should start at the design stage of any building project and should continue throughout the life of that building. In this the building owner, and or user, must play an active part. Chapter 2, 'The economics of maintenance', discusses the balance to be struck at the design stage between first costs and maintenance costs.
... When a building is handed over to the user - the client - those who have designed and built it are often forgotten, unless something goes wrong. ... This lack of continuity is unfortunate, for much useful information can be obtained if a proper feedback system can be devised. The tragedy is that many building are destroyed not by outside forces, such as wind and weather, but by their owners, through bad housekeeping, inadequate maintenance, and even outright neglect. A recent school inspection produced complaints of water penetration through a wall, resulting in damaged decorations. A quick investigation and the removal of two tennis balls, a soft drinks can and a large quantity of leaves from a gutter cured the problem instantly. An insignificant example, but typical of the sort of minor problem which can grow into a major one through neglect, and which can be multiplied a thousandfold in many buildings.
All new buildings, as a matter of course, should be provided with a maintenance manual, so that a building owner can look after and service a building in use just like a car. The Building Centre maintenance manual and its use is discussed in Chapter 18. A proper maintenance routine should be established and followed so that repairs and replacements are carried out in proper sequence and before they develop into the building structure the means of access and other facilities needed to make redecoration, repair and replacement as simple and economical as possible. In many instances a 'replacement bank' of spare parts (Chapter 17) for essential equipment should be established when a building is completed to avoid delays and cost increases at later dates.
... Most architects regard the building they design as part of themselves, and many are horrified by the way buildings are treated by careless or thoughtless owners, who certainly treat their cars with greater respect.
If a pattern could be established where the building design team was involved with the lifetime health of a building - like a family doctor - perhaps more buildings would enjoy a longer trouble-free life and give greater service to the owner and the community. Architecture is concerned with buildings that are practical, economical and beautiful for the whole of their life span, and modern economic conditions require this to be as long as possible. (emphasis added) (From Chapter 1, Design and building maintenance, by Edward D. Mills, pgs. 1- 15) |
What are a few of the most important maintenance considerations?
| Quote: | There are three basic ways of maintaining buildings:
1. Day-to-day work caused by unforeseen breakdowns or damage.
2. Cyclic work undertaken to prevent failure (e.g. exterior repainting to protect jointery).
3. Planned repairs to restore elements or services to an acceptable standard.
The second and third categories should be able to be planned in a scheduled manner with least incovenience ot the building user. Wise designers present their clients with a repair manual that stipulates the time scale for cyclical inspection, and section 8.7 describes the contractual implications.
Breakdown repairs or vandalism need special provision and urgency where safety is concerned (see paragraph 8.2.6).
Cyclic inspection should be made of building components with moving parts such as taps, ball valves, door springs, locks, etc. since replacement of a failing washer or a missing screw to a lock can save extensive repairs in the event of a flood or break-in. The aim should be to maintain each building regularly to a standard which will carry it through from one repair cycle to the next.
Materials for Building
Hardcover
By Lyall Addleson
... The best reference sources are the BRE Digests relating to Building Defects and Maintenance. There are also useful textbooks from the recent past which set down theory with illustrated details such as Materials for Building by Lyall Addleson (Iliffe Books, 1972) and Structural Failure in Residential Buildings by Schild, Oswald, Rogier and Schweikert (Granada, 1979).
Structural Failure in Residential Buildings
Hardcover
By Eric Schild
The tools of the trade are a working moisture meter and a camera to record evidence (the Polaroid type having the advantage that immediate photos are available and the evidence is recorded in a satisfactory form). Binoculars are invaluable for studying inaccessible parts of the exterior or roofscape. Photometry has advanced to the stage that survey drawings are no longer required, the photometric prints being invaluable for elevational and air views. Drawn key plans or outline elevational sketches are still useful for reference purposes to grid lines or locations.
A maintenance manual is an essential tool in the professional management of property. It should be prepared by the design team and updated by the maintenance staff and building owner. The record should contain the names, addresses and telephone numbers of the building team and those of sub-contractors an suppliers. The preparation of the manual is a useful discipline for designers and aids 'feedback' as the maintenance sequence unfolds. Chapter 18 refers to other aspects of this 'tool'. Clearly, the investigation of defects will be made easier by referring to a manual that has been conscientiously followed. There is protection for the designer, since lack of regard to regular inspection and repair can be placed as the building owner's responsibility.
Regular inspections are a vital part of the procedure for buildig maintenance. A systematic approach employing a manual as guidance will help in planning the time scale and scope of inspections. It is common to divide the task into exterior and interior. There are various pro-formas that are useful sources if the building owner has not previously arranged matters on a rational basis. Hotel groups and hospital management boards have standard schedules. Another valuable reference are the studies produced by the Ecclesiastical Architects and Surveyors Association for quinquennial reviews. The (Land &) Property Services Agency is another well-known authority. (From Chapter 8, Maintenance of the Building Structure and Fabric by Alan Blanc, pgs. 88-91) |
| Quote: | | Editor's Note: Consumers would benefit enormously if B.C. 'billies - building designers, developers, planners and legislators - committed the lessons of this book both to memory and law. Chapter 18 By Jacob Blacker even includes a series of detailed checklists to assist in the production of a manual. The quality of the maintenance/inspection plan, especially whether it includes full contact information for the design team, should form the basis of the selling price, especially for condos because of their peculiar fraud-friendly, laisse-faire rules of governance. Our book is the second edition of the book, which has been widely available to architects since 1980 and again since 1994. We found our copy in the stacks at UBC's Irving Barber Learning Centre. |
Link to this entry
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editor
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| Posted: Tue Nov 21, 2006 12:32 pm Post subject: |
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Our e-mail to the Building Centre:
| Quote: | From: editor
To: chenderson@buildingcentre.co.uk
Cc: editor@bccondos.ca
Sent: Tuesday, November 21, 2006 11:24 AM
Subject: Building Maintenance and Edward Mills
Hello Building Centre,
Just a quick note to tell you we think you're swell and give you a link at our Condo Life Cyles forum under maintenance (see above). We think the Edward Mills book, Building Maintenance & Preservation, Second Edition, is fabulous - so much so that we cannot understand how design professionals and legislators here have been allowed to ignore it. It's like tort law without the man on the Clapham bus and the Paisley snail. We strongly suggest prominent links at your website to the book and to building maintenance generally - esp. as we are also watching to see what happens with your new commonhold law and housing, both of which look to us dangerously similar to our own. More on our efforts to warn UK officials against copying our building practices at our Worldwide Condos.
We will soon (I hope!) be launching a new forum to be called Barrier Free Condos, where we will encourage discussion and present examples of residential accessible and universal design ideas worldwide - an effort to encourage inclusion, esp. as the world ages and construction space is limited. Could you suggest three or four of the best UK links in this regard?
Many thanks,
Editor
http://www.bccondos.ca
Tracking multi-unit housing successes, failures and the repair experiments worldwide. |
We'll post the reply at this forum. Please check back for updates.
Link to this entry
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editor
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| Posted: Tue Nov 21, 2006 1:12 pm Post subject: |
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Deterioration, Maintenance, and Repair of Structures
Hardcover
By Yale Professor, Civil Engineering, Sidney M. Johnson
| Quote: | The major problems in design and construction of civil engineering works are well known and, in general, are carefully considered in practice. In addition, design live-load provisions incorporate a margin for overload, design specifications provide a substantial safety factor, and design assumptions are conservative. As a result, a structural collapse, other than a mishap occurring during construction, is a rarity, and both engineer and owner rest secure, knowing that a structure, if at least reasonably well designed, will adequately support the loads to which it is subjected.
However, while they may be perfectly adequate for the applied loads, many structures, after being put into use, develop serious problems of maintenance. Further, the same problems consistently recur in similar structures under similar conditions of exposure, which suggests that the defects might be the result of an inadvertent but repeated use of unsuitable details and/or practices in design and construction. As will be developed in the text, this is actually the case, and the primary purpose of this book is to consider the cause and repair of defects, not resulting from errors, but which occur in structures proportioned without error and by conventional design procedures and which, therefore, must be considered as having been adequately designed.
It will also be developed that the use and repetition of these unsatisfactory details and practices is due, simply, to the fact that designers and construction personnel are not aware that they are troublesome and so do not incorporate corrective provisions into subsequent construction. That this should be so is readily understandable. Design, construction, and maintenance usually are performed by separate departments and frequently by separate agencies or firms. Moreover, the maintenance problem does not show up for several years, by which time, the parties responsible for the design and construction may be engaged in other duties, deceased, or otherwise detached from concern with the matter.
As a result, liaison between the designer, the construction personnel, and the maintenance engineer is poor, and designers and construction people, however well-intentioned, have little opportunity to learn from the poor performance of the work. There is also little opportunity to learn from the poor performance of the work of others due to a natural reluctance to advertise one's difficulties. (emphasis added) (From the Opening paragraphs of the Preface) |
| Quote: | | Editor's Note: ... You can lead a horse to water. Note that this text has been widely available to B.C. building experts, their regulatory bodies and successive gov'ts since its publication in 1965! |
More on wood-frame construction:
| Quote: | Summary of Methods for Preventing Decay: The occurrence of serious decay in a timber structure, except in temporary or expendable constructions, almost always can be prevented by proper design or construction. The principals are:
1. Build with seasoned, dry lumber, and not with unseasoned or infected woods.
2. Detail the design to keep the wood dry, to provide circulation of air around the timbers, and to shed water. Do not enclose timbers in unventilated spaces or sheath them in such a manner that penetrating vapor may condense on the wood. Provide roofs with positive drainage, and protect sidewalls by a wide overhang of the roof. (emphasis added) Do not create pockets to pond water. Avoid traps for dirt, because the accumulated debris tends to absorb moisture.
3. Prevent contamination by removing potential sources of infection, such as wood debris, stumps, stakes, or abandoned lumber such as that from concrete forms.
4. Keep untreated wood away from contact with the ground. If contact with the ground is necessary (such as a foundation post), use a preservative treatment, a decay-resistant wood, or an encasement.
5. Where service conditions are such that the wood is exposed to decay hazards, provide for painting, preservative treatment, or encasement of the timber, or, within the limitations stated, use some resistant wood. (From Chapter 7, Timber Structures, p. 246) |
Link to this entry
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editor
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| Posted: Tue Nov 21, 2006 3:28 pm Post subject: |
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Waterproofing the Building Envelope
Hardcover
By Michael T. Kubal
| Quote: | No building or structure is maintenance free. In fact, of total costs, 30 percent consist of original construction costs and 70 percent of maintenance costs. Considering the possible damage and costs that might occur, it is just as important to maintain the exterior as the interior of a building. Regular exterior maintenance prevents water intrusion and structural damage that might be associated with water infiltration.
An effective maintenance program involving the building envelope depends on using qualified inspection procedures to determine the required maintenance. A building requires complete inspection from top to bottom, including a review of all exterior elements, at recommended intervals of every five years but no longer than every 10 years.
Any building portion inaccessible by ordinary means may require hiring a contractor for scaffolding and inspection. Only competent building trades personnel should make these inspections, be it an architect, engineer, or building contractor.
In view of 90 percent of all leakage being caused by 1 percent of the building envelope, all components of an envelope must be inspected. All details of inspection, including exact locations of damage and wear, that will require attention after an inspection should be documented.
Among envelope components, the following require complete and through inspection:
Roofing, with particular attention to terminations, flashings, protrusion, pitch pans, skylights, and copings
Above-grade walls, with attention to expansion and control joints, window perimeters, shelf angles, flashings, weeps, adn evidence of pollutant or chemical rain deterioration
Below-grade walls, checking for proper drainage of groundwater, signs of structural damage, and concrete spalling
Decks, with attention to expansion and control joints wall-to-floor joints, handrails, and other protrusions.
These are only the highlights of maintenance relating to waterproofing materials. Inspection procedures for existing damage and buildings that have not been maintained are discussed in Chap. 7. (From Chapter Nine, Safety and Maintenance, at pgs. 230-231) |
So who's to blame for so much inattention to waterproofing standards?
| Quote: | Waterproofing, often rated first among the most frequent causes of construction complaints, continually creates unnecessary problems. No single building component producing such enormous problems has so little standardization on which to base improvements. The construction industry has yet to adopt the principle that the entire exterior facade must be treated as a single cohesive unit - an envelope in which all individual components are transitioned into one another in completely waterproof detailing.
Such a task is complicated by job-site manufacturing. Even if all facade components are factory-manufactured at the job site, they must be assembled into a single unit. It is here that the industry fails. Waterproofing standards must be developed to transition the various building facade components coherently.
Architects or engineers provide insufficient detailing to transition components together. Contractors lack sufficient supervision to ensure that terminations and transition details are installed properly by multiple trade contractors. * Owners are remiss in implementing effective exterior maintenance programs, focusing on building exterior maintenance only when leaks appear. (emphasis added)(From the first page of the Preface, which touts this 1993 book as the first of its kind to seek a performance standard for building envelope components). |
| Quote: | | * Note: And just how the hell are inexpert consumers supposed to know this if neither the legislation nor the construction industry addresses it as a standard? |
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editor
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| Posted: Wed Nov 22, 2006 6:24 pm Post subject: |
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Damp Indoor Spaces and Health
Hardcover
Institute of Medicine of the National Academies
Committee on Damp Indoor Spaces and Health Board on Health Promotion and Disease Prevention
| Quote: | Studies reviewed in this report indicate that:
. Dampness is prevalent in residential housing in a wide array of climates (Chapter 2);
. Sufficient evidence of an association exists between signs of dampness and upper respiratory tract symptoms, cough, wheeze, and asthma symptoms in sensitized persons (Chapter 5);
. Sufficient evidence of an association exists between signs of mold and upper respiratory tract symptoms, cough, wheeze, asthma symptoms in sensitized persons and hypersensitivity pneumonitis in susceptbile persons (Chapter 5).
The committee concludes, on the basis of this information and other findings presented in Chapters 2 through 6, that excessive indoor dampness is a public health hazard.
... Given the costs of *maintaining a clean, dry, well-heated, and properly-ventilated home, it should not be surprising that low-income families are more likely to have substandard housing and to live in the kind of damp interiors that may be associated with health problems. Children in such families may bear an additional burden because they are more likely to be in school buildings that have environmental problems: poor plumbing, inadequate heating, and poor indoor air quality. Reviewing data accumulated in the second National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES II) and the Harvard Six Cities Study concluded that ethnicity, poverty, and residence combined to influence asthma prevalence in inner-city children in ways that could not be easily disentangled.
Economic factors may encourage poor building practices. Combinations of pressure to build quickly and cheaply can result in poorly constructed buildings that are more likely to have water leaks. Under ordinary circumstances, the market works to sift out builders that produce shoddy construction. However, in low-income neighborhoods - where options are limited because there is a shortage of affordable housing - and in other circumstances in which demand outstrips supply, the market may not penalize poor workmanship effectively.
Poverty combined with the lack of affordable housing may also create incentives to forgo or limit investment in maintenance that might help to prevent moisture problems. Landlords have little incentive to spend money on repair when there is a surplus of people ready to accept any kind of low-rent shelter. As already noted, those pressures also result in overcrowding, which can lead to excessive indoor moisture and condensatiuon problems, which in turn promote mold and bacterial growth.
... The committee recommends (Chapter 2) that the determinants of dampness problems in buildings be studied to ascertain where to focus intervention efforts and health-effects research. The present state of the science, however, is insufficient to support a general assessment and monitoring effort for mold or other dampness-related agents for public-health policy purposes. (Footnotes omitted) (From Chapter 7, The Public Health Response,at pgs. 311-317) |
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editor
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| Posted: Wed Dec 20, 2006 6:46 pm Post subject: |
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When Maintenance Is Not Enough
Construction Defects, Worn Out Systems and Components and Other Surprises
By California construction attorney Glenn H. Youngling
Prepared for a 1995 conference on *community associations similar to B.C.. *strata councils.
| Quote: | As a general rule, there is no higher duty required of community associations than to properly care for the buildings under the association's control. In a condominium complex, the duty is pervasive through nearly all of the project improvements. In a planned development, the association is typically responsible for all exterior building systems such as roofing, stucco and siding. In either case, the CC&Rs and the Davis-Stirling Common Interest Development Act (Davis-Stirling Act) require the Association to anticipate what maintenance, repair and replacement will be necessary over the life of the project. That work must then be funded and performed as required to keep the project in good repair.
When the buildings are found to have significant defects, fall into disrepair and/or insufficient funds have not been earmarked and accumulated, something has gone wrong. (emphasis added) How a board should address this problem depends on many complex factors, but certain principles will help guide the way toward a realistic plan of action. The purpose of this article is to provide you with those principles, as well as an understanding of how they should be applied. It is important to stress at the outset that the following principles should be applied nearly simultaneously. (emphasis added)
Examine whole building systems.
Build the right team of professionals.
Consider all funding options.
Identify applicable statutes of limitation.
Communicate with your membership.
Examine Whole Building Systems
... It is extremely important that the association maintain good communication with members. One difficulty is the lack of full information at any particular point in time, especially early in the problem evaluation process. It is often not fully appreciated that informing members of what you do not know can be as important or more important than telling them what you do know. The following could be used to provide you with a structure for your communication memo to owners:
1. Tell them what you know.
2. Tell them what you don't know.
3. Tell them what you are doing about what you don't know.
4. Tell them when you expect to have sufficient information and when the association is likely to act on the information.
As an example and in greatly abbreviated form, such a communication might look like the following:
| Quote: | | The Association has received complaints from many owners about leaks. Temporary efforts are underway to stop active leaks, but the Association does not know what the underlying problem may be or how widespread it is. The Association has retained an architect to investigate the waterproofing systems. The Association has retained counsel to advise it of what legal rights it may have and how long litigation will remain a funding option. A report from the architect is anticipated in about ninety days. Thereafter, the Association will examine the recommendations and it hopes to act on them at that time. To report a leak, please contact the manager. If you are offering your home for sale, you should consult with your real estate agent regarding appropriate disclosures. The Association will periodically provide you with additional information as it becomes available. (emphasis added) |
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| Quote: | | Providing accurate general information in a timely manner is important to building community and forming the support necessary to see through whatever problem is facing the association. Also, with many associations being targeted by disgruntled buyers for nondisclosure issues, consistent and accurate communication will serve as the best defense against those lawsuits. |
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editor
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| Posted: Wed Jan 03, 2007 11:59 am Post subject: |
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From our full review of this 2005 local text at Architects and Engineers:
Designing the Exterior Wall
An Architectural Guide to the Vertical Envelope
Hardcover
By UBC Associate Professor of Architecture, Linda Brock
| Quote: | | A maintenance manual for the exterior wall should be given to the owner at the completion of the project. The owner is often given a book of instructions for the operation of mechanical and electrical equipment, but rarely a reference manual for maintenance of the exterior wall. Some of the envelope components, such as sealants, will need surveying and possible replacement within the first five years. Other components, such as precast concrete panels, may not have problems for 30 years or more. The client must understand that all exterior wall components have a predictable service life, and many lower cost enclosure components may fail prematurely and need to be replaced. The compromise that ensures when function and durability is balanced with aesthetics and cost is the beginning of such a "maintenance manual." Once a firm has established a format for such a manual, it should be relatively easy to work up one for a particular project. (Maintenance of other parts of the building envelope, such as the roof, should also be included in the manual). (emphasis added) (From Chapter 1, Decisions That Affect the Exterior Wall, at pgs. 12-13) |
| Quote: | Editor's Note: Yes, a clear, comprehensive maintenance and repair manual would be most welcome, especially for multifamily housing, the type of residential construction that continues to fail in record number throughout the Lower Mainland and elsewhere in the province. Unfortunately, however, without any proposals as to how subsequent purchasers who are not design experts and their similarly inexpert governing strata councils might actually access, interpret and follow its content - particularly in the absence of any legislative guidance - such a manual would have little, if any, consumer value!
Failure to appreciate the desperate need for an ongoing advisory relationship between building designers and the subsequent owners of their buildings throughout the course of each building's service life is, sadly, just the first of a number of problems we have with this book. -- Ed. |
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| Posted: Mon Oct 29, 2007 2:10 pm Post subject: |
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From Green Roofs and Rooftop Gardens:
Green Roof - A Case Study
Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates' Design for the Headquarters of the American Society of Landscape Architects
Hardcover
By Christian Werthmann
| Quote: | | ... In the search for technical solutions, the rationalists always answered the question of how to build a green roof by looking at new materials and technologies, as well as the employment of new substances for roofs and soils. The opposing faction argued that flat roofs leaked and that even a child knows that a proper house has a pitched roof. This controversy, led by technical mock arguments between modernism and traditionalism, was finally ended by the rather cumbersome achievement of technical perfection. Flat roofs are in the meantime up to par even in climates with long winters and rainy summers. - Peter Latz, Amertshausen, January 2007, Introduction, p. 15) |
| Quote: | | Roof gardens and green roofs both belong to a type of roof that supports vegetation. In general, the planning profession draws a clear distinction between the two types. Roof gardens are installed to be accessed and enjoyed. They are the most cost intensive to construct, heavy in weight with deep soil profiles (more than six inches), and maintenance intensive. In contrast, green roofs cost a fraction of a roof garden, are lightweight with thin soil profiles, and require minimal maintenance. Most green roofs are inaccessible, and they are mainly installed for environmental performance and visual improvement. Green roofs are descended from the vernacular architecture of various countries in all parts of the globe, whereas roof gardens are known as luxury items of the affluent since the famous hanging gardens of Babylon (600 B.C.) (From The Reclamation of Roofs, p. 18) |
| Quote: | If roof-top use remains a privilege of the wealthy living in historic districts, the democratic promise of the modern movement to build roof gardens for everybody has obviously failed.
Thereby a variety of factors played a role. The biggest factor was and is the considerable additional expense of a roof garden compared to a regular roof. One must not forget that the flat roof is attractive to a developer because it is less costly than a sloped roof. The addition of a roof garden eradicates those savings. It is not the additional cost of the garden that has to be paid for but also the reinforcement of the whole structure that has to hold the weight of the garden. There is also a considerable financial commitment to maintaining a garden that is mostly out of sight from social supervision. For the average developer who has a revenue expectation of seven years, the increase in value of the property through a roof garden does not occur fast enough to be profitable[/color], moving the roof garden into the realm of a luxury item.
Other factors had considerable influence as well, like the exodus of the middle class into low-density suburbs that drained the city of people who could have asked for and afforded a condensed archiotecture of roof gardens and terraces. On top of this, technical shortcomings like the leakage problems of early roof gardens created an aura of suspicion and avoidance - prejudices that persist up to today. Finally, it has to be acknowledged that a majority of buildings do not have the programmatic need for intensive roof gardens, such as industrial buildings, warehouses, most commercial buildings, and residences in low-density areas with too low a population to profit from a roof garden or with too much open space around.
About 30 years ago, the desolate sight of these bare flat roofs triggered a counter movement in the German-speaking countries of Europe. Methods of exchanging the gravel of ballast roofs for a thin coat (three to five inches) of growing medium were tested. The low weight of the soil made structural reinforcement of the existing roofs unnecessary, thus substantially reducing costs. They also found that the minimal type of a "roof greening" (the direct translation from the German) provided similar environmental benefits as a traditional roof garden. The thin coatings retained and cleaned rain water, cooled and humidified the surrounding air, filtered dust, reduced noise levels, insulated against heat, provided habitat for flora and fauna, and prolonged the life expectancy of the roof. The technology was widely implemented as a remedy against many problems of urban density, such as frequent flooding, water and air pollution, and high energy consumption. (emphasis added) (III The Shattered Dreams of Modernism, pgs. 21-23) |
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