Heritage Buildings and the Art of Creating Healthy Environments
Our buildings have the capacity to engender emotional, psychological, and physical wellbeing...and to operate more efficiently while doing so.
Our relationship with the built environment has changed considerably over the past year. COVID-19 has disrupted our lives in myriad ways, including how and where we spend our time. We have spent so much time in our own homes, so little time in indoor public spaces, and more time — if we were lucky — taking refuge outdoors. Over a year into the pandemic, things are starting to open back up, and we are starting to think about how our public places can better serve us in a post-COVID world. When the team from Walter Sedovic Architects | Modern Ruins reached out about putting a webinar together to do a deep dive into this topic, we jumped at the chance to host them.
Water Sedovic and Jill Gotthelf from WSA were joined by Troy Simpson, Director of Research and Operations at 3x3, and Thomas Newbold, President of Landmark Facilities Group. They explore how aspects of heritage buildings were designed with public health in mind — and how we can learn from these examples while innovating for our modern needs. In this webinar, you’ll hear about case studies that focus on holistic approaches to issues of space and wellbeing; rediscovering and re-evaluating existing buildings' inherent qualities and readily adaptable nature; optimizing programmatic needs; expanding accessibility; providing spatial flexibility; evaluating occupancy and density; accommodating emerging live/work needs; systems adaptation and optimization; and refining means and methods of maintenance and operation.
THIS EVENT WAS PART OF THE LEAGUE’S FUTURE OF PRESERVATION WEBINAR SERIES. THANK YOU TO OUR PROGRAM SPONSORS, THE PEGGY N. & ROGER G. GERRY CHARITABLE TRUST.
From WSA:
As our physical environments once again become settings to nourish social relationships and provide gateways to the larger world around us, there is likely to be corresponding demand to demonstrate that they also are safe zones, unencumbered by threat of contagion. Well-crafted heritage buildings, forged with the advancements of their day, are also steeped in tradition and empirical knowledge. They possess inherent traits that often render them highly adaptable to modern needs, while addressing a more transcendent agenda, one that enhances emotional, psychological, and physical wellbeing. The oil embargo of the 1970s changed our sensitivities, though, birthing a feverish rush to re-engineer our heritage – vanquishing (but not obliterating) many of the favorable features that we now need to re-engage. This trend toward overlooking healthful, inherent attributes of historic buildings continues to this day. Insofar as these features still remain, often largely intact and ready to be rediscovered and put back into service, can be a revelation for stewards of heritage properties, one that is both exhilarating and economical. Creating healthy environments that nurture innovative programs in the wake of a pandemic is an exercise of four inter-related components:
Scientific: analyzing conditions on the basis of an expanding universe of knowledge and practice;
Architectonic: identifying and capitalizing on intrinsic benefits of early features that support modern goals;
Technological: incorporating refined approaches to mechanical systems, both passive and active;
Sensory: supporting a universal approach to wellness that ensures a sense of security when people are invited back in, breaking down barriers between outside and inside, re-evaluating traditional ways of defining space and – above all – recognizing this as our signal moment to re-imagine how buildings can best serve to foster engagement and inclusion.