My directors demanded innovation. Innovate or die was the mantra. Faster! Cheaper! Lighter! Stronger! You get the picture. And there is a place for it. I’d rather cross the Atlantic in a modern airliner than a Zeppelin. I’d rather be treated by a modern surgeon than a 17th century one. But if you are building a school, courthouse, hospital or any building you expect to serve for centuries, then I suggest you don’t use materials with a design life of decades.
The colleges of Oxford and Cambridge are monuments of stone which have lasted for centuries. My old school had many prefabricated classrooms, dotted amongst the brick, steel, and glass main buildings. Even prefabs make more sense than incorporating RAAC in a “permanent” building. Innovation by incorporating a component with a design life of a few decades within the structure of one designed to last for centuries, requires that you’d better have a good plan ready for how you replace it, with minimum disruption. Whereas if a prefab is on its last legs you could replace it over a weekend.
I’m sure that the National Trust must have to undertake conservation and repair work on the fabric of their old buildings, but their website talks mainly of their conservation work on fabrics, furniture, and paintings.
Value management isn’t cost cutting. Using a cheaper material isn’t going to yield better value, if you have to pull the building to bits to replace, it after just thirty years. My old chemistry master Martin Berry was an early member of the Green movement. One of his stories was of lobbying the government about energy policy. Apparently, when accused of simply not looking far enough ahead in terms of energy policy, the then energy minister, Tony Benn got quite annoyed. He said that some of the people in his department were looking not one or two, but three or four years ahead! It’s true that a week is a long time in politics. It’s but a fleeting moment in the life of a school. Innovation with cheaper materials isn’t good value unless they’re durable too. RAAC isn’t, it appears. Stick to tried and trusted.