ABSTRACT
This chapter presents a series of concepts and examples that describe facets of the architecture of persistence but it does not prescribe how to design long-lived buildings. In turn, that diversity enables persistence because whatever comes, there will likely always be something about a diverse building that works, allowing it to better tolerate localized or momentary disruptions and inconveniences. Use-based typologies such as a factory, school, or library, when cross-pollinated with the temporal dimension of an architecture of persistence, become a type of flux form that possesses an embodied intelligence of adaptability. An architecture of persistence is therefore dependent on balancing the fixity and longevity of primary building systems with the unencumbered flux of the secondary systems; providing more precision for anticipated change and more generosity towards the indeterminate. The architecture of persistence transcends the functional pragmatism of such short-term resilience, by focusing on longer-term human-led changes, and building the capacity of people to retool and reorganize for uncertain futures.
