In America, we dispose of 2.5 million plastic bottles every hour, 4.3 pounds of waste in a given day (1), and 35 million cell phones in a year. In North America (2). only 1% of products are still in use 6 months after they are purchased (3). Unchecked, these patterns will lead to a 170% usage of the earth’s bio-capacity by the year 2040 (4). In a society of consumption, that tends to view buildings as a product or commodity, the proposition of preserving older historic buildings is often an argument against the general current of the culture.