By Lucia Athens
Why shouldn’t saving existing buildings have the same glamour as designing something totally new? Not only do existing buildings often hold the keys to our past, but renovating these assets to extend their useful life is one of the most sustainable building activities we can do.
Of course, there are challenges, such as how we bring older buildings up to modern standards of energy efficiency. Particularly in the case of historically landmarked buildings that have stringent aesthetic requirements, this can be a challenge. That’s a big part of the reason behind the new Green Preservation Lab, an initiative of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. The Trust entered into a historic agreement with the City of Seattle to host the first such lab in Seattle. The Trust’s mission is perhaps best illustrated by the story of one historical Seattle building that nearly saw the wrecking ball instead of its current preservation and renovation.
Some buildings that one would assume are historically landmarked are not. Due to rather bizarre legislation of the Washington State Supreme Court, property owned by churches is exempt from historic preservation requirements. The First United Methodist Church in Seattle was slated for the wrecking ball. This 100-year-old building includes a terra cotta domed sanctuary and a huge historic organ. I used to be able to see the building out my office window when I worked for the City, and frankly, it was one of the few graceful buildings in the neighborhood. Due to the tireless efforts of Diane Sugimura, the Director of Seattle’s Department of Planning and Development, Daniels Development was able to acquire the property and save the church as part of its overall development plan that includes a high rise on the other portion of the property. The church hall is now called “Daniels Recital Hall” and is used for special events. The project’s motto: “Sustainability Begins with Preservation” is highly-visible to all passersby.
The fate of First United Methodist Church begs the question: when we look at redevelopment of existing urban areas, how do we maintain a sense of the past? Even if the buildings are not historically designated, they may be worth retaining. I recently visited the offices of Cannon Design Powerhouse in St. Louis. This LEED® Gold building was formerly a steam plant, located not too far from the St. Louis arch. The 1926 building had been vacant for 25 years, and was slated for demolition. Cannon Design, an architecture firm, bought the building and renovated its 19,000 square feet as their headquarters, including a three-story interior gallery and rooftop penthouse.
Cannon Design LEED Gold Offices, adaptive reuse of an old Steam Plant, St. Louis
Renovating such existing industrial building stock can add a lot of character to redevelopment projects where replacing everything with brand new development runs the risk of being bland and devoid of what I call the “funk factor.” The flavor and aliveness of some neighborhoods is partly due to extensive adaptive reuse, such as the Pearl District of Portland. The Capitol Hill neighborhood has been experiencing some recent revitalization centered around the Oddfellows Hall building, Cal Anderson Park, and the recent relocation of Elliott Bay Books to the area. The vibe is a cross between the Pearl District and San Francisco’s North Beach area.
Another way to layer on the “funk factor” to street life is to allow for unpredictable messiness with the addition of street artists and street vendors. Portland has a lively food cart program in their downtown. Seattle has been struggling to get something like this up and running but has recently made some progress with some pilot food cart areas. See Mark Hinshaw’s editorial and this article in The Stranger.
This image shows a food cart in an empty block of South Austin. Note the completely bland building façade in the background and imagine this photo without the vendor carts. Can you say flavorless? Do you have any other ideas about how to maintain or create the “funk factor?”
South Austin Cupcake Vendor, other Food vendors in background
Every time I turn on the TV or radio, or read the paper, I am disturbed at how big our sustainability challenges loom, and how we don’t seem to be doing things differently enough or fast enough to fix them. It seems that we are spending a lot of time doing workarounds and patching over many of our pressing design problems. Maybe we need to start fresh and think about things in a whole new and perhaps zany way. If you were “king for a day,” which new rules and ways of approaching the built environment would you institute? If you could not just think outside the box but throw the box entirely away, what would you do?