How Buildings Learn: What Happens After They're Built

by Stewart Brand

This is the formal answer to the question, “Why are old buildings more freeing?” They free you by constraining you. Since you don’t have to address the appalling vacuum of a blank site, you can put all of your effort and ingenuity into the manageable task of rearranging the relatively small part of the building’s mass that people deal with every day—the Services, Space plan, and Stuff. Instead of having to imagine with plans, you can visualize directly in the existing space. “We’ll need another window over there to light this room, which will be much deeper when we take out that wall. And then those stairs will be more central, so we should make them a bit grander.” It is much easier to continue than to begin. Less money is needed, as well as less time, and fewer people are involved, so fewer compromises are necessary. And you can do it by stages while using the space. The building already has a story; all you have to do is add the interesting next chapter.