Habitat

This chapter focuses on reducing towns’ and buildings’ hidden costs: embodied CO₂ and land consumption. Besides choosing low-impact materials, the longer things last, the lower their annual impacts. Longevity requires durable major elements, replaceable shorter-life components and easy expansion, contraction and adaptability. But what are future needs? Whereas practical needs slowly mutate into expectations, soul needs persist over centuries. Consequently, buildings’ longevity can depend more on being treasured enough to keep than on their practicality. But we also need more homes. Where? Multi-storey living is common, but risks social, ecological and economic costs. Brownfield land demands development, but plots are often small, awkwardly shaped or polluted, hence uneconomic. Replacing older buildings squanders embodied energy and destroys place character; replacing gardens reduces rainfall absorption. Gap-infilling, however, densifies unobtrusively. But wildlife also needs land: habitat and linkages. Increased wildlife improves community morale, hence upkeep, security and economic value: ecological and human, social and economic benefits coincide.