Modern vs. Traditional: Appropriate Design for Infill and Additions Within Historic Districts
2019 Arizona Historic Preservation Conference | Prescott, AZ
MAG projects a total population increase of 23,000+ in Downtown Phoenix between 2015 and 2030.
Setting the Stage
MAG projects a total population increase of 54,000+ in Central Phoenix between 2015 and 2030.
Intros & Opening Salvos
Meditations on Process
Standard #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.
Standard #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.
&
Literal Replication
Invention within a Style
Abstract Reference
Intentional Opposition
Semes' Four Strategies
These options represent a range of responses to the call for “differentiated” yet “compatible” designs for additions or infill construction in historic settings found in the Secretary’s Standards.
...any extra work which is indispensable must be distinct from the architectural composition and must bear a contemporary stamp. - Athens Charter, 1964
Preservation regulations, including the Secretary’s Standards, should not be construed to support the acceptance or rejection of any proposed project solely on the basis of style. - Steven Semes, 2007
When works are successful, even across vast differences in expressive possibility, their architects have understood the meaning of the original building, used it to illuminate their work and their work to illuminate it, and combined the new and the old in the service of a common goal - Paul Byard, 1998
&
&
Consider the Headington 🦈
Any system of control must make some small place for the dynamic, the unexpected, the downright quirky.
- UK Secretary of State, 1992
For more on the saga of the 🦈: http://www.headington.org.uk/shark/