How Buildings Learn

Brand asserts that the best buildings are made from low-cost, standard designs that people are familiar with, and easy to modify.

Brand states that a supply of simple, low-cost, easily modified buildings is key to innovation and economic growth.

He implies that an expanding property-value market may actually slow innovation and produce a less human-centered community.

[4] In the BBC series, Brand is highly critical of the entire modernist approach to architecture.

Brand was also critical of French development during the 1980s which did not take local conditions into account and ended up not serving their purpose, like the central Library which had to take money away from buying new books to deal with the heat produced by so many windows.

In How Buildings Learn , Stewart Brand cites the example of Palazzo Pubblico in Siena as a building that was constructed in sections over 500 years, eventually evolving to its present state, and which continues to be renovated and remodeled as required by its users.
Container City in the London Docklands uses recycled shipping containers for shelter, an idea Brand embraces in How Buildings Learn .
Pier 21 , Canada's National Museum of Immigration, exemplifies a building which learns. It is a "low road" building, by Brand's definition. Without fundamental alterations to its basic structure or materials, it began as a break bulk cargo warehouse, then an ocean liner terminal and immigration building, and finally a national museum, the Canadian equivalent of Ellis Island .