Gibson HomeBuilders

My guests today are Mac Davis with MHD Construction and Jean Gibson, Vice President of Gibson Home Builders.
Restoration, Preservation, Rehabilitation and Reconstruction

1). Preservation places a premium on retaining all historic fabric through conservation, maintenance and repair. It reflects a building's continuum over time, through successive occupancies, and the respectful changes and alterations that are made.
2). Rehabilitation emphasizes the retention and repair of historic materials, but more latitude is provided for replacement because it is assumed the property is more deteriorated prior to work.
Both preservation and rehabilitation standards focus on the historic materials and features, finishes, spaces, and spatial relationships that give a property its historic character.
3). Restoration focuses on the retention of materials from the most significant time in a property's history, while permitting the removal of materials from other periods.
4). Reconstruction establishes limited opportunities to re-create a non-surviving site, landscape, building, structure, or object in all new materials.

Why Rehabilitation?
The Standards for Rehabilitation (codified in 36 CFR 67 for use in the Federal Historic Preservation Tax Incentives program) address the most prevalent treatment -- rehabilitation.
Rehabilitation is defined as "the process of returning a property to a state of utility, through repair or alteration, which makes possible an efficient contemporary use while preserving those portions and features of the property which are significant to its historic, architectural, and cultural values."
The Standards for Rehabilitation have been widely used over the years--particularly to determine if work on an historic building qualifies as a certified rehabilitation for federal tax purposes. Federal agencies use the standards in preserving historic properties owned or controlled by the government. Finally, local and state historic district and planning commissions across the country have adopted the standards.
Do the standards apply to all buildings?
The standards apply to historic buildings of all materials, construction types, sizes, and occupancy and encompass the exterior and interior of the buildings. They also encompass related landscape features and the building's site and environment, as well as attached, adjacent, or related new construction.
To be certified for federal tax purposes, a rehabilitation project must be determined to be consistent with the historic character of the structure(s), and where applicable, the district in which it is located.
Are any alterations allowed?
As used by the Department of the Interior, the term rehabilitation assumes that at least some repair or alteration of the historic building will be needed for contemporary use. However, these repairs and alterations must not damage or destroy materials, features or finishes that are important in defining the building's historic character.
For example, certain treatments--if improperly applied--may cause or accelerate physical deterioration of the historic building. This can include using improper repainting or exterior masonry cleaning techniques, or introducing insulation that damages historic fabric.
In almost all of these situations, use of these materials and treatments will result in a project that does not meet the standards. Exterior additions that duplicate the form, material, and detailing of the structure to the extent that they compromise the historic character of the structure will fail to meet the standards.

The Standards for Rehabilitation (Department of Interior regulations, 36 CFR 67) pertain to historic buildings of all materials, construction types, sizes, and occupancy and encompass the exterior and the interior, related landscape features and the building's site and environment as well as attached, adjacent, or related new construction.
The standards are to be applied to specific rehabilitation projects in a reasonable manner, taking into consideration economic and technical feasibility.
The following are standards in a nutshell:
1. A property shall be used for its historic purpose or be placed in a new use that requires minimal change to the defining characteristics of the building and its site and environment.
2. The historic character of a property shall be retained and preserved. The removal of historic materials or alteration of features and spaces that characterize a property shall be avoided.
3. Each property shall be recognized as a physical record of its time, place, and use. Changes that create a false sense of historical development, such as adding conjectural features or architectural elements from other buildings, shall not be undertaken.
4. Most properties change over time; those changes that have acquired historic significance in their own right shall be retained and preserved.
5. Distinctive features, finishes, and construction techniques or examples of craftsmanship that characterize a property shall be preserved.
6. Deteriorated historic features shall be repaired rather than replaced. Where the severity of deterioration requires replacement of a distinctive feature, the new feature shall match the old in design, color, texture, and other visual qualities and, where possible, materials. Replacement of missing features shall be substantiated by documentary, physical, or pictorial evidence.
7. Chemical or physical treatments, such as sandblasting, that cause damage to historic materials shall not be used. The surface cleaning of structures, if appropriate, shall be undertaken using the gentlest means possible.
8. Significant archeological resources affected by a project shall be protected and preserved. If such resources must be disturbed, mitigation measures shall be undertaken.
9. New additions, exterior alterations, or related new construction shall not destroy historic materials that characterize the property. The new work shall be differentiated from the old and shall be compatible with the massing, size, scale, and architectural features to protect the historic integrity of the property and its environment.
10. New additions and adjacent or related new construction shall be undertaken in such a manner that if removed in the future, the essential form and integrity of the historic property and its environment would be unimpaired.

The U.S. Secretary of the Interior in 1977 developed Guidelines for Rehabilitating Historic Buildings to provide general design and technical recommendations to property owners, developers, and federal managers in applying the Standards for Rehabilitation.

What the Guidelines are:
1). General guidelines in applying the standards to projects during the planning stage.
2). With the Standards for Rehabilitation, a model process for owners, developers, and federal agency managers to follow.
3). Pertinent to historic buildings of all sizes, materials, occupancy, and construction types; and applicable to interior and exterior work as well as new exterior additions.

What the Guidelines are not:
1). Codified as program requirements, unlike the standards.
2). Meant to give case-specific advice or address exceptions or rare instances.

For example, the guidelines cannot tell owners or developers which features of their own historic building are important in defining the historic character and must be preserved, or which features could be altered, if necessary, for new use. This kind of careful case-by-case decision-making is best accomplished by seeking assistance from qualified historic preservation professionals in the planning stage of the project. Such professionals include architects, architectural historians, historians, archeologists, and others who are skilled in the preservation, rehabilitation, and restoration of the historic properties.
In stories on specific features -- masonry, storefronts, etc. -- those approaches, treatments, and techniques that are consistent with the Secretary of the Interior's Standards for Rehabilitation are listed. Those approaches, treatments, and techniques, which could adversely affect a building’s historic character, are listed under Not Recommended.
The recommended actions in each section are listed in order of importance in successfully planning and completing an historic rehabilitation project. The actions:
1). Assure the preservation of a building's important or "character-defining" architectural materials and features

2). Make possible an efficient contemporary use.
Rehabilitation guidance in each section begins with:
3). Protection and maintenance, the work that enhances overall preservation goals.

4). Where some deterioration is present, repair of the building's historic materials and features is recommended.

5). Finally, when deterioration is so extensive that repair is not possible, the most problematic area of work is considered: replacement of historic materials and features with new materials.

To further guide the owner and developer in planning a successful rehabilitation project, those complex design issues dealing with new use requirements such as alterations and additions are highlighted at the end of each section to underscore the need for particular sensitivity in these areas.

Under guidelines published by the National Park Service, historic rehabilitation is a three-step process of identifying, retaining, and preserving the form and detailing of architectural materials and features that are important in defining the historic character.

Actions that are most apt to diminish or destroy the building’s historic character are not recommended.
A word of caution, however. Loss of character is just as often caused by the cumulative effect of a series of seemingly minor actions. Thus, undertaking any changes that are not recommended must be viewed in that larger context, e.g., for the total impact on a historic building.
These steps should be followed in rehabilitating any historic building.
Step 1: Identify
First, identify materials and features that are important and must be retained.

Step 2: Protect and Maintain
Protection generally involves the least degree of intervention and is preparatory to other work.
For example, protection includes the maintenance of historic material through treatments such as rust removal, caulking, limited paint removal, and re-application of protective coating; the cyclical cleaning of roof gutter systems; or installation of fencing, protective plywood, alarm systems and other temporary protective measures. Although a historic building will usually require more extensive work, an overall evaluation of its physical condition should always begin at this level.
Step 3: Repair
When the physical condition of character-defining materials and features warrants additional work, repairing is recommended.
Guidance for the repair of historic materials such as masonry, wood, and architectural metals again begins with the least degree of intervention possible. This might include:
1). Patching
2). Piecing-in
3). Splicing
4). Consolidating
5). Or otherwise reinforcing or upgrading them according to recognized preservation methods.

Repairing also includes the limited replacement in kind--or with compatible substitute material--of extensively deteriorated or missing parts of features when there are surviving prototypes (for example, brackets, dentils, steps, plaster, or portions of slate or tile roofing).
Although using the same kind of material is always the preferred option, substitute material is acceptable if the form and design as well as the substitute material itself convey the visual appearance of the remaining parts of the feature and finish.
Step 4: Replace
Following repair in the hierarchy, is replacing an entire character-defining feature with new material.
This is acceptable when the original materials are too deteriorated or damaged to repair. Examples might include an exterior cornice; an interior staircase; or a complete porch or storefront.
If repair is not possible, the next best thing to do is replace the feature with new material of the same kind.
If the essential form and detailing are still evident and can be used to re-establish the feature as an integral part of the rehabilitation project, then its replacement is appropriate.
Like the guidance for repair, the preferred option is always replacement of the entire feature in kind, that is, with the same material. Because this approach may not always be technically or economically feasible, provisions are made to consider the use of a compatible substitute material.
It should be noted that, while the National Park Service guidelines recommend the replacement of an entire character-defining feature under certain well-defined circumstances, they never recommend removal and replacement with new material of a feature that--although damaged or deteriorated--could reasonably be repaired and thus preserved.
Step 5: Recreate missing features
When an entire interior or exterior feature is missing -- for example, an entrance, or cast iron facade; or a principal staircase -- it no longer plays a role in physically defining the historic character of the building unless it can be accurately recovered in form and detailing through the process of carefully documenting the historical appearance.
Where an important architectural feature is missing, its recovery is always recommended in the guidelines as the first or preferred, course of action. Thus, if adequate historical, pictorial, and physical documentation exists so that the feature may be accurately reproduced, and if it is desirable to re-establish the feature as part of the building's historical appearance, then designing and constructing a new feature based on such information is appropriate.
However, a second acceptable option for the replacement feature is a new design that is compatible with the remaining character-defining features of the historic building. The new design should always take into account the size, scale, and material of the historic building itself and, most importantly, should be clearly differentiated so that a false historical appearance is not created.
Step 6: Carefully consider any additions or alterations
Some exterior and interior alterations to historic building are generally needed to assure its continued use, but it is most important that such alterations do not radically change, obscure, or destroy character-defining spaces, materials, features, or finishes.
Alterations may include providing additional parking space on an existing historic building site; cutting new entrances or windows on secondary elevations; inserting an additional floor; installing an entirely new mechanical system; or creating an atrium or light well. Alteration may also include the selective removal of buildings or other features of the environment or building site that are intrusive and therefore detract from the overall historic character
Avoid new construction
The construction of an exterior addition to a historic building may seem to be essential for the new use, but it is emphasized in the guidelines that such new additions should be avoided, if possible, and considered only after it is determined that those needs cannot be met by altering secondary, i.e., non character-defining interior spaces.
If, after a thorough evaluation of interior solutions, an exterior addition is still judged to be the only viable alterative, it should be designed and constructed to be clearly differentiated from the historic building and so that the character-defining features are not radically changed, obscured, damaged, or destroyed.