By Marcy Rockman, Lifting Rocks Climate and Heritage Consulting, for the SHA Climate Heritage Initiative
Perspective on contemporary, historical structures. This NY State op-ed addresses the benefits of adaptive reuse of older buildings, particularly considering how it preserves the native architectural style and history. I’m not even remotely opposed to this, but this reminds me of how rarely we discuss why we see and understand older buildings having character and younger ones ( generally speaking ) having less, how this fits with the current system of planning power and financial control, and the difficulties of creating new alternate paths. For example, development of new approaches for mass production of modular housing is an effort to address real issues in housing shortages ( NYT, will add gift link close to time of posting: https ://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/18/opinion/editorials/housing-costs-modular-homes .html ), but which may further erode use of local and historical architectural styles and their connections to local environments and climates without careful attention to these factors.
Featured Link:
Visit our Climate Heritage Initiative site for a list of all website content in this series.
Photo funds: Architectural rendering of designed adaptive reuse of the 1890-1940 Erie Malleable Iron service, captured from Brennan, D., Demolition or modify of ancient buildings? It’s a problem of society values. GoErie ( 2024 ).
