Building lifespan

I am not sure about the last part of your question, but there does seem to be a trend for stripping back older office buildings and recladding their shell, so it seems that it is actually lasting in many cases.

I like the idea of this thread, so I might add a few that can be added to or disputed as the case may be.

In Dublin I think the following have a good chance of lasting:

Cheating a bit and putting a few that are older than 30 years:

Busaras

Much of UCD Belfield Campus, but particularly the Restaurant Building and Admin Building.

Berkeley Library, Trinity

Bank of Ireland, Baggot Street (Some of it is still less than 30 years old)

Original RTE Buildings.

Less than 30 years:

Poolbeg Chimney’s (not exactly sure of how old they are)

Central Bank

Dublin Civic Offices on Wood Quay!!

Beckett Theatre, Trinity (Might need wood replaced!)

Ussher Library, Trinity

The Spire!!!

Central Bank

It is already more than thirty years since the bank was started, and since it was completed in 1978, will soon be more than thirty years since it was completed. It is undergoing a major renovation at the moment.

The Spire!!!

The spire was designed to have a lifespan of over one hundred years.

@Andrew Duffy wrote:

It is already more than thirty years since the bank was started, and since it was completed in 1978, will soon be more than thirty years since it was completed. It is undergoing a major renovation at the moment.

I thought it was finished in 1980. What year was it started in? I have noticed that they are working on it at the moment. Do you know what is being done to it?

@Frank Taylor wrote:

A lot of these buildings listed are reinforced concrete construction and the last line of my post ws to ask whether this material can physically last beyond 100 years. This may be a dumb question, I don’t know.

Sorry Frank, maybe I misunderstood the question. I was thinking about it from the perspective of what I thought would definitely not be replaced or knocked down for the next 100 years or so, that had been built throughout the later part of the 20th century and in the early 21st. I had not really thought about whether or not these buildings are capable of lasting. I definitely don’t know what the life expectancy of reinforced concrete is, but I assume it depends on the build quality.

Pastiche georgian brick infill such as the stephen’s green end of Leeson street looks pretty long lasting.

I had not really thought about these, but I would say you are probably right. Particularly once the ‘Fake Georgian Society’ is founded :p

@Frank Taylor wrote:

A lot of these buildings listed are reinforced concrete construction and the last line of my post ws to ask whether this material can physically last beyond 100 years. This may be a dumb question, I don’t know.

I like the spire because it’s obviously going to be around a long time. Pastiche georgian brick infill such as the stephen’s green end of Leeson street looks pretty long lasting.

In the 90s, I worked in a large office building in a Dublin industrial estate, described in The Irish Times as the highest spec offices in Ireland. It lasted 7 years. The new county plan allowed the owners to build something twice the height.

I’m not sure of the required lifespan of the structure itself but most all residential stuff needs DOE floor area certs and they are currently asking for 60-65 years min lifespan on the cladding system.

@phil wrote:

I thought it was finished in 1980. What year was it started in?

1972 or ’73, I think. This has some dates:

http://www.centralbank.ie/data/site/abt_hist.pdf

– Proposed 1967
– No work between summer 1973 and spring 1975
– Completed June 1978
– Officially opened December 1979 (perhaps where the 1980 on this site comes from)

@phil wrote:

I have noticed that they are working on it at the moment. Do you know what is being done to it?

I think a new air-conditioning system is being installed.

@Andrew Duffy wrote:

1972 or ’73, I think. This has some dates:

http://www.centralbank.ie/data/site/abt_hist.pdf

– Proposed 1967
– No work between summer 1973 and spring 1975
– Completed June 1978
– Officially opened December 1979 (perhaps where the 1980 on this site comes from)

I think a new air-conditioning system is being installed.

Thanks Andrew.

This is an interesting topic. I too often look at everything going up at the minute and wonder about mainly retail buildings such as shopping centres and out-of-town ‘retail parks’ and how long all of that synthetic cladding they use is going to last. There’s a great variety of cladding on these buildings, but generally it’s a metal composite of one sort of another, with huge panels of it attached onto concrete walls.

More architectural forms of it are also used in a more design-led fashion, such as the recently completed Ilac Centre facade. Will any of those joints last more than 20 years?
Good question about the lifespan of exposed reinforced concrete…

I think Shopping Centres are directly representative of the trends that they are selling. I don’t think there are many that have a lifespan of more than 40 years or so. Stillorgan, for example, is the first shopping centre in the Republic, and that is due for replacement soon. I think that the reason the Ilac is done (as pointed out in another thread) using cheaper materials, is that their is a realisation that it will probably be replaced again in 15 to 20 years as fashions change, and therefore must be adaptable to those changes. That is why I have such difficulty accepting the name ‘Dundrum Town Centre’. Town centres have a degree of permenance about them, whereby individual buildings can be replaced over time, whereas superstructures, such as shopping centres tend to be overhauled completely or replaced altoghether.

@Graham Hickey wrote:

This is an interesting topic. I too often look at everything going up at the minute and wonder about mainly retail buildings such as shopping centres and out-of-town ‘retail parks’ and how long all of that synthetic cladding they use is going to last. There’s a great variety of cladding on these buildings, but generally it’s a metal composite of one sort of another, with huge panels of it attached onto concrete walls.

More architectural forms of it are also used in a more design-led fashion, such as the recently completed Ilac Centre facade. Will any of those joints last more than 20 years?
Good question about the lifespan of exposed reinforced concrete…

Clad Concrete structures are generally built to last c.100 years. The main problem with exposed concrete is salt erosion, which is obviously why it’s unwise to expose it near the sea. When you’re walking around town the amount of exposed re-bar on buildings (especially c1960 flats) is scary. And I know that I’ll be slightly uneasy sitting in the West stand tomorrow

With respect to the retail stuff, insulated aluminium cladding panels generally have a lifespan of 40 years

Isn’t the dome of the Pantheon made of concrete?

Agreed, phil, on the Dundrum ‘Town Centre’. Such an affront that I’ve never been and don’t intend to go, not even out of architectural curiosity (well, ‘architectural’ curiosity). I’ve often wondered what will happen to it when it fails. Hardly the type of building that can be adapted over time, either wholesale or piecemeal, i.e. as you say, not a town centre at all. (There’s a whole other privately-owned ‘public space’ argument too about DTC, but here’s not the place.)

Well “FallingWater” has survived 70 years. FLWs design built from stone, glass and reinforced concrete. The buildings most impressive feature was the steel reinforced concrete slabs that cantilevered out over a waterfall. The house had structural problems from the beginning. The contractor built the forms for the reinforced concrete terraces without taking into account the fact that even cured concrete sags a bit after the forms are taken away. But the failure of the building is due to the expermental design and not the concrete it’s self. The catilever was too large and the ground wasn’t capable of holding the weight, and so the building was tied back to prevent it from falling. If I remember correctly the water level rised into the house at one time. And it survived that.
Fallingwater is by no means perfect structurally, but I would like to think that we have made some technical advances in the last 70 years.

The lifetime of the concrete structure is more important than its strength. Since corrosion is the main cause of failure of reinforced concrete, a corrosion proof reinforcement can extend the life substantially. For these purposes some structures have been constructed using fibre-reinforced plastic rebar, grids or fibres. The “plastic” reinforcement can be as strong as steel. Because it resists corrosion, it does not need a concrete cover of 50 mm or more to protect the steel reinforcement. This means that fibre-reinforced structures can be lighter, have longer lifetime and for some applications be price-competitive to steel-reinforced concrete