ABSTRACT
Vitruvius’ idea that “nothing suffers annihilation, but at dissolution there is a change, and things fall back to the essential element in which they were before” is a fundamentally ecological formulation about the life cycle of materials that sustains life on Earth. There is no absolute dictate on what is essential about all buildings, although this and subsequent chapters identify principles and patterns that emerge as universally important to an architecture of persistence. Architects must have the foresight to write the future histories or chronologies of change when designing new buildings; to design the essential with intentionality, with both a purposeful resistance to and the expectation of change. Material integrity is also related to the idea of integration. Because building materials are resource-intensive, integrating multiple functions into a material can mitigate environmental impact. Critical approaches to integration must consider when separation and legibility are necessary.
