ICS Occasional Paper Series Volume 2, Number 2 http://doi.org/10.4225/35/57a95f8909771 Recycled Buildings: Challenging Sustainability in an Era of Air Conditioning Dr Tim Winter Institute for Culture and Society, University of Western Sydney October 2011 Editors: Professor David Rowe and Dr Reena Dobson Assistant Editor: Dr Michelle Kelly Publisher: Institute for Culture and Society University of Western Sydney Locked Bag 1797, Penrith NSW 2790, Australia Tel: +61 2 9685 9600 Fax: +61 2 9685 9610 Email:
[email protected] Web: www.uws.edu.au/ics Recycled Buildings: Challenging Sustainability in an Era of Air 1 Conditioning Tim Winter Centre for Cultural Research (now incorporated into the Institute for Culture and Society), University of Western Sydney Abstract It is now often said that the greenest building is one that is already built. But as we approach the question of re-using buildings very different issues and challenges come up when compared to other discussions about recycling. In contrast to the recycling of consumer goods, the built environment involves questions of planning, urban development, legislation and an unclear disaggregation of who are the customers, producers and end users. As such then there are very different ideas of responsibility involved. The majority of recycling debates typically focus on the present or recent past, but in buildings we are faced with the ideas, visions, politics and failures of previous years, decades or centuries. To ask the question about recycling buildings is thus a consideration of the possibilities and limitations of recycling the past, in all its material, concrete, earthy and immovable forms.