What's Old Is New: Designing Around & With History
Kate always finds herself documenting the possibilities of a building that’s being rehabilitated
By Kate Regeev
Kate Reggev is an Associate, Architect, and Architectural Historian at Beyer Blinder Belle. She is also an Adjunct Assistant Professor at Columbia GSAPP and freelance design writer with a love for buildings — old, new, and everything in between.
“The greenest building is the one that already exists,” is a common phrase I hear from fellow preservationists and even sustainability experts, but significantly less so from my peers who are architects. Indeed, from our earliest studios in design school to the glossy pages of architectural magazines, it is buildings that are brand new and exhilaratingly different from what we already know that are deemed the hallmark of genius and creativity and announced as shining beacons of the future of design.
History, we are taught, is a thing of the past, or at best, the source of potential precedents or partis. For most contemporary architects, the past is not seen as fertile ground for a new, exciting project but more often something to ignore or demolish. Until recently, even architectural publications have been reluctant to highlight projects that focus on renovations, restorations, or additions to existing buildings because they often found that it was so hard to see the deep creativity, hard work, and careful coordination that went into the project when so much of it was already there. The past, many have concluded, has passed.
Rolls of historic drawings used for research purposes
But this is particularly surprising and even counterintuitive, because virtually every architect renovates, adds on to, or works within an existing building during their career. Whether it’s a modest office update, high-end gut renovation of a new kitchen, major addition to a renowned museum, or simply an empty, undeveloped lot, architects have to learn how to work with what is already on, in, and, significantly, around the site. And in recent weeks, the need to understand our history and how it plays out in our built environment has become even more evident and urgent as we continue to see our past catch up with us: the long, relentless leash of slavery’s legacy; the long-term effects of mid-century urban renewal plans and redlining; and the impact of systemic racism on our communities. How can we design a better future if we don’t know and understand the economic and social systems that are already in place, the community and culture that already exists, the importance of a favorite brick-and-mortar local shop, or the community contributions of local building traditions like a front porch or building stoop?
For me, this initial question of ‘What is already there?’ has always fascinated me from a multi-faceted perspective that ranged from the figurative to the literal, the oral history of a place to its mortise-and-tenon wood framing. While my studies as an undergraduate student in architecture covered this range to an extent, they always sought to distinguish historical styles, precedents, construction technology, and ways of thinking and working as part of the “history” portion of the curriculum, and the “design” portion was exclusively the realm of the new. Architecture, the narrative suggested, was constantly moving along a linear progression towards the new and the better: argon-filled IGUs with low-e coatings replaced single-glazed plate glass windows, which had replaced brick masonry walls, which had, in turn, replaced solid stone exteriors.
Trying to match existing marble samples with new slabs is always a challenge!
It wasn’t until my final year of undergraduate studies that I took a pivotal class that made me realize: history and contemporary design don’t have to be relegated to distinct, never-intersecting worlds; in fact, some of the most meaningful and sensational projects are those where the existing and the new complement each other, adding meaning, depth, and beauty. In this course led by architect Francoise Bollack following her book Old Buildings, New Forms, I learned about David Chipperfield’s awe-inspiring project at the Neues Museum in Berlin, Carlo Scarpa’s surgical but sculptural insertions in Venice, and the urban-scaled insertion of the rational, U-shaped Uffizi Gallery in Florence’s winding medieval street layout. I began to crystalize the way that I understand the built environment: as a palimpsest — that is, objects whose physical properties can tell their histories, like documents that have been revised again and again yet still allow the original to be readable (think “Track Changes” for buildings!). 24-inch thick, weather-worn limestone walls with marks from being quarried four hundred years ago could speak to a building’s original construction methods and stand robustly next to the most delicate of curtain wall systems, together telling the history of a building’s foundations, demise, and resurrection — and that of its inhabitants, too.
Today, I advocate that history is a thing of the present. We need to research it, understand it, accept it, and design around and, importantly, with it for our future. As an architect, architectural historian, design writer, and educator, I champion using the past to inform designs through historic research, studies of a site and its context, careful material selection, and meticulous evaluation of what is already there to create something uniquely appropriate. This can happen at all scales: from urban masterplans down to the detailed minutiae of a single light fixture or a few linear feet of plaster molding, and it doesn’t have to be subtle or replicate the existing. Some of the most evocative and meaningful designs that combine old and new do so boldly, skillfully announcing contrasts and distinctions between existing and new to great effect.
This is a point of view that I’ve been able to hone in my position as both an architect and an architectural historian at Beyer Blinder Belle — a firm that values this approach — and allows me to work on adaptive reuse projects, expansions of existing buildings, and restorations of historic structures that are just as exciting, if not more so, than some of the most revered, object-like buildings by current architectural masters around the globe. My writing for design and academic publications has both refined my eye to this kind of design, but also allowed me to extend these ideas to and engage with the broader public.
White-gloved archival research looking at the original drawings of the Flatiron Building
This perspective has also enabled me to really consider what sustainable design means beyond eco-friendly “green’ labeling and how buildings contribute to broader understandings of sustainability incorporating climate change and social equity. All too often, newly-constructed buildings that have achieved LEED status or other green certification systems are deemed successful because of their substantially reduced energy consumption when compared to the average newly-constructed building. And to some extent, this is true: newly-constructed green buildings certainly present significant efforts towards more sustainable buildings — the World Green Building Council says that LEED-certified buildings in the US and other countries have been shown to consume 25% less energy and 11% less water,than non-green buildings.
But you know what’s even more sustainable than a new building? The one that’s already there. When reusing an existing building instead of demolishing and constructing a new building, it’s been demonstrated that there are substantial environmental savings, intact communities and local engagement, and the growth of socially equitable neighborhoods.
From an environmental perspective, existing buildings possess embodied energy, or the energy already consumed by all of the processes associated with the production of a building, from the harvesting and processing of natural resources to the manufacturing, transport, delivery, and installation of the material or product. What’s more, existing buildings, in particular older buildings, are often designed with vernacular elements and local materials that utilized the building’s orientation and microclimate to its advantage with traditional features like transom windows above doors, operable windows and shutters, high ceilings, interior courtyards, exterior porches, and wide overhangs to promote natural means of heating and cooling.
But of course, buildings are designed for people, and the social and equitable aspects of keeping, altering, and adding on to existing buildings is another important aspect to their sustainability. Historic buildings are excellent economic incubators in cities: the National Trust for Historic Preservation has conducted extensive research on this, and has concluded that the reuse of historic buildings results in denser, more walkable, affordable, and adaptable neighborhoods. Streets that are home to older buildings tend to have fewer chain stores, more women and minority-owned businesses, and more jobs in old and new businesses, together creating more diverse streetscapes and communities.
That’s not to say that there isn’t room for designers and our most creative, innovative ideas and interventions in these spaces — I would argue that there is more room for exciting, bold new designs to existing buildings than ever before — but rather that a careful and considered approach to what’s already there should always be the first step. Reinvigorating existing buildings and reimagining them for the future is only going to become increasingly important in the rapidly shifting, post-COVID real estate market. It can be hard to predict what we will need, where, and when, but let’s take the quirks and wisdom of our older buildings in concert with the hope and optimism of our contemporary ones, and allow the past to be a major contributor to the future, making spaces as resilient, equitable, and sustainable as possible.