In the United States, “obsolescence” has been adopted as an economic attribute of buildings for nearly a century. In the tax code since 1931, it sets the average useful life of a buildings at thirty years. The definition might be disregarded since the devaluation aims to lower tax liability for building owners and does not reflect any meaningful material change to the building. Yet this designation has placed buildings into the realm of disposable consumer goods, inciting an appetite for new structures, and creating financial stimulus that anticipates each building’s replacement. While this dynamic supports a cyclical real estate system, it normalizes the impulse to tear down buildings which could endure much longer. This economic mechanism has also given way to a slackening of material and construction quality, which seems justified if a building is vowed to be wrecked in just three decades. Today, as we strive to limit our carbon emissions and curb global warming, the material existence of a building may in fact prove to be a distinct advantage, given that new construction accounts for 11 percent of global carbon emissions. Nevertheless, buildings of the last fifty years in the northeastern United States have generally been built to meet the urgencies of their day and have seldom been maintained or updated to ensure their longevity. How can we content with these aging buildings and their spatial constraints or material shortcomings, while transforming them for continued use and evolving environmental conditions? In this seminar, students work collaboratively to offer demonstration projects that avoid the demolition of specific buildings.