Adaptive Reuse + Community Culture

Hi Justin, Your question seems to imply a lack of awareness of the local, national,and international heritage communties and the work that has been going on for centuries to sustain community identity. In the United States this work has been linked to environmental justice and planet health for at least a century. Both here and abroad, the environmental and preservation movements have always tag teamed. The National Trust in the United Kingdom was formed in 1895 "to act as a guardian for the nation in the acquisition and protection of threatened coastline, countryside and buildings". The U.S. National Park Service was established in 1916 to protect land and buildings.The National Historic Preservation Act of 1969 catalogs the rewards of preservation, including "cultural, educational, aesthetic, inspirational, economic and energy benefits. . ." The National Environmental Policy Act establishes six goals, among them to "preserve important historic, cultural, and natural aspects of our national heritage. . ." Both laws, word for word, state the purpose of ensuring "social, economic, and other requirements of present and future generations". Quite inspiring. On a community scale the Charleston, SC Historic District was established in 1931 and the Vieux Carre of New Orleans was protected in 1936. Lewis Mumford wrote The Culture of Cities in 1938 long before Jane Jacobs. Case studies? My book was published in 2010 with 50 case studies but they lack WBLCA, which is included in the case studies that the CARE team is assembling. A 2020 book, Main Street's Comeback, by Mary Means, who conceived of the Main Street Program in the 1970's, documents the past successes of 1600 Main Street communities and the opportunities going forward for reinvestment. The Atlas of Reubanism released by the National Trust in 2006 has compelling data about the importance of existing buildings for healthy communities. I suspect Lori Ferriss and Carl Elefante might point you towards the APT Sustainable Preservation Technical Committee which Carl and I helped establish in 2004 and Lori now co-chairs, the Zero Net Carbon Collaboration for Existing and Historic Buildings which was Lori's brianchild, and the Climate Heritage Network - an international non-profit for which they are both on the International Steering Committee. The current economic structure favors building replacement. In the recent NextCity op-ed by Vincent Martinez and Patrice Frey "We Can't Build Our Way to Net Zero", they point out that we need to expand funding opportunities for building reuse and they offer concrete examples of how. On an international level, the value of heritage is woven into the SDG's even while there is continuing urgency for more engagement and action. I find the ICOMOS publication "The Future of Our Pasts: Engaging Cultural Heritage in Climage Action" extraordinary in the thoroughness of its evaluation with 19 countries contributing. My long winded answer hardly scratches the surface, but in summary, many people agree that the concept of building reuse is a good tool for maintaining community identity. Case studies and data exist for individual buildings and whole communities. Let us know how best to share this to educate and empower the SDL.  Cheers, Jean

Excellent response, Jean. I urge you to check out Jean's book and the sources she cites. There is really good information and insights in the "Atlas of Reurbanism" and the ICOMOS publication "Future of our Pasts". The HIstoric Preservation community has a deep understanding of Environmental and Cultural Justice. Case in point, when I attended the Global Climate Action Summit in 2018, with Carl and others from AIA, I spent a day at the Climate Heritage Mobilization event, (this was the year before the Climate Heritage Network launched). It was the most inspiring and culturally diverse event I attended that week. We heard indigenous and vernacular approaches and solutions to the climate crisis from around the world, definitely voices we need to hear from. From a community standpoint, there are lots of arguments to make for reuse. Reusing and improving buildings, in addition to maintaining existing neighborhoods, supports financial equity, creates local jobs, strengthens community control, and increases neighborhood resilience. Investment in communities that have been subjected to historic discrimination and economic “redlining” has the potential to bring sustainable and equitable climate solutions that also have meaningful economic outcomes for these impacted communities. To make this potential a reality, decisions must be made by those impacted by the improvements. Local decision making is more likely to happen at the building renovation scale than at the new building and redevelopment scale. “Architecture is all too often imagined as if buildings do not –and should not –change. But change they do, and have always done. Buildings are gifts and because they are, we must pass them on.” Hollis’s The Secret Life of Buildings. It is easy to understand nature as a gift, it’s harder to see things like buildings as gifts but that’s what they are. The materials and products that make up our buildings are gifts from the earth. The skill and craft that goes into our buildings are gifts from the people who built them. And from a carbon standpoint, there are a lot of buildings we need to save even when they aren't historically significant. Our job as architects and preservation architects is to transform them into significant buildings - by making them relevant, useful and beautiful. Great discussion, I would love to be a part of it. Larry CARETool.org On Sat, Feb 18, 20

In parallel with these responses that are already jampacked with resources - The city of San Antonio recently passed an ordinance to move toward 'circular economy,' and the lens through which they approached it was actually from the dept of preservation and heritage (and of course has a multi-faceted approach to connect with training, community engagement, etc.) - It may be helpful to see that these types of city-level policies can come from a variety of seedlings, and not always from dept of environment or solid waste. (https://www.sanantonio.gov/historic/CurrentProjects/Deconstruction) You could look to how they've been speaking about it for one path of getting cities on board.  And for case studies - I think this was mentioned by Kjell in the other forum thread about material reuse, to look at the AIA COTE top 10 award recipients that especially in recent years tend include significant narratives around reuse, and usually have something connected to community identity.   

San Antonio is a poster child for many of us in how the preservation community can lead in the circular economy. With "preservation" the burden to make a case for protection of individual buildings and neighborhoods usually rests with interested citizens, often seen as elite. The percentage of the U.S. built world "protected" by historic designation is very small. In NYC it is less than 4% and has still been blamed for restricting economic growth (articles by economist Ed Glaeser rebutted by Donovan Rypkema and a recent Atlantic article has higher numbers).  What Justin and Larry are calling attention to is the need to make EVERY building valuable because they are indeed gifts. It is my hope that the rising conversation about carbon will do just that. Strategies for changing our economic system which currently prioritizes replacement may include paying heavily for the right to demolish, and paying for the carbon (and other environmental) costs of new materials, but many smaller opportunities are possible - allowing in-law apartments and ADU's to increase density and balancing the need for accessibility with reuse which often facilitates upper story development of small commercial, and as San Antonio and Yarden are demonstrating facilitating material salvage and reuse are important for a circular economy. I am grateful that Larry and others continue to expand the conversation beyond historic preservation. In the San Francisco event Larry mentions, I was inspired/excited by the community actions across the world. I particularly remember the mayor of Chefchaouen, Morocco. A description of this work and others can be found here https://africa.iclea.org/feature-city-profile-greening-the-blue-city-of-chefchaouen/       

This really warms my heart to learn of San Antonio’s recognition and success in this area! Back in 2009-2011ish I served on the steering committee for the City’s first Historic Preservation Plan and as the Mayor’s appointee to the Community focus group on the 2010-2020 Recycling & Resource Recovery Plan. I moved away in 2011 and hadn’t kept up with the legacy impact of these initiatives. The strong leadership Mayor Hardberger and Mayor Julian Castro demonstrated in those days seems to have borne fruit. Heather DeGrella AIA, LEED AP BD+C, Fitwel Ambassador, EAC-PS, | (she / her / hers) Associate Principal | Sustainable Design Director Registered architect in Oregon [cid:opsislogo2021_13a53c65-c652-4f53-a86d-657f2f0f9b85.png] Architecture, Interiors & Planning 920 NW 17th Avenue, Portland, OR 97209 o 503.525.9511 d 503.943.6228 w opsisarch.com From: J

Yes, there are great things happening here in San Antonio, with a lot of credit going to Stephanie Phillips in the City's office of historic preservation... who has the best job title: Deconstruction & Circular Economy Program Manager at City of San Antonio Office of Historic Preservation. Here is a post on a project with did with her: https://www.lakeflato.com/content/kelso-house-renovation-pursues-zero-carbon-certification There is a great social aspect to this as well... the attached photo is from a recent circular economy happy hour!

Stephanie Phillips just posted the ICLEI report about circular economy in European cities on Linkedin. Attached.