What if Old Buildings Are Greener Than New Ones?

Even by the standards of London’s glassy skyscraper district, which includes buildings nicknamed for a walkie-talkie and a cornichon, the Tulip would have been a weird one. The design, by the British architect Norman Foster, featured a 50-foot-wide concrete shaft supporting a multilevel observation deck a thousand feet over London Bridge. There was no office space. No housing. Just a big pole with a view, which, in these times, looked less like a flower than a swab testing the London sky for COVID-19.

Last month, the U.K. government rejected the design. Among the reasons were many shortcomings that will sound familiar to American readers: loss of open space, harm to historic structures, limited community benefits. And one that might sound new: “very high embodied energy.”