Norman Alston Architects

Mid-Century Modern: When they start to recognize it as historic in New England, you have to figure it's arrived.

I came across this article in the New York Times that describes how important Modern buildings have gone main stream with the traditional historic preservation folks in New England. A sign of rapidly changing times, but a move that should help efforts to protect buildings from this area across the country. General recognition of these types of buildings as historic is likely still a long time coming.

UT School of Architecture Undergraduate Program ranked second nationally by DesignIntelligence.

Not that I didn't get a really good education at UT in my day, but  the school has certainly come  a very long way since that time. Congratulations to Dean Steiner, the faculty and the staff. The announcement can be seen here.

Economic advantages of historic preservation

I expect to be linking frequently to the work of PlaceEconomics, a consulting firm in Washington, D.C. that focuses on the economic impacts of historic preservation activities. The firm's  founder, Donovan Rypkema, is widely known for his work in this area and for the fact that he is an interesting, opinionated and "straightforward" speaker. In this first post, I am linking to a report called "Good News in Tough Times: Historic Preservation and the Georgia Economy". With economic conditions as they are, and with pressure from all sides to compromise good preservation technique, especially from the sustainability side, such information can be helpful in maintaining endangered resources.

Is Cleveland coming back through good urban design?

I'm linking to this New York Times article about Cleveland's (almost) downtown resurgence because there were a couple of things mentioned that made me think of Dallas.

If the resurgence is not quite downtown, what is the impact on downtown? Does this new development take away from the energy of a nearby diminshed downtown, or is it close enough to support and enhance it? This isn't mentioned and will warrant some additional research. One of the reasons I believe that Downtown Dallas has been slow to respond to the development activity over the past few years is that I felt it  was too wide spread. We have pockets of interesting redevelopment but seem to have trouble filling in between them; West End, Victory, Deep Ellum, South Lamar, the Main District and Main Street Gardens, the Arts District, etc. They don't feel to me like a cohesive downtown, yet. Signs do suggest, however, that our Arts District, combined with the Woodall Rogers enclosure may well be serving that purpose by acting as the one connecting piece while also bringing in a vibrant Uptown. Which leads to the other issue.....

Is Cleveland achieving this with their Arts District development just as I have described for Dallas? Sure looks that way from this article. This will be worth following up on.

The Empire State Building continues to demonstrate that historic preservation and sustainability can coexist.

I posted a report back in March about sensitive energy upgrades on the Empire State Building and how this looked to be a good example of how to upgrade an historic building without sacrificing historic significance. Now comes an update from the National Trust further outlining the ongoing success of this effort.

Norman Alston Architects to move to historic 400 North Ervay.

I am excited to announce that beginning January 1, 2012, Norman Alston Architects will be officing in the former US Post Office and Courthouse Building in Downtown Dallas, now known as 400 North Ervay. We have been working with building owner Shawn Todd on the restoration and adaptive reuse of this beautiful historic structure for more than 4 years. I have previously reported the completion of the project, a step that will make some of Dallas' most beautiful and historic interior spaces accessible to the public after being shuttered for more than a decade. Now I can imagine no more fitting way to begin the year than showing up to work in one of Dallas' most historic structures. More information and a date for an open house will follow.

Hidden New York: Historic Backhouses

I share this information from a posting by the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation because it is such an interesting urban phenomenon, and because it is unknown here. I am especially taken with the way these very old and historic structures have been adapted over the years to remain viable, overcoming physical limitations far beyond the comparatively simple issues that seem to try and derail preservation efforts here. Also see this related post from another East Village blogger. These were brought to my attention by my daughter Leslie who actually lives in one of the subject backhouses on East 12th Street. Her perception of her modest New York home has been premanently and dramatically changed, as has my own. And she reports that she has enthusiastically adopted the term "Horsewalk" to describe the entrance passage to her apartment.

 

The photo is from the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation's "Off the Grid" blog.

 

Office Christmas Party to be "adjusted"

A few folks are probably aware that our annual holiday open house was tentatively scheduled for Wednesday night, December 7, 2011, although an official announcement has not been issued. For a lot of really good reasons it has been decided that this most popular event will be postponed until soon after the first of the year. While the likely assumption would be that the party is a casualty of the economy, or that we had become uneasy with parallels between our open house and the observance of Pearl Harbor,  not so. In fact, this postponement is primarily to allow some other exciting developments to more fully run their course. Details on that and the new date will be forthcoming soon.

It was made painfully clear to me last year that two long-standing and particularly popular features were missing, and that future events should take pains to avoid these oversights. So rest assured that whatever the date for the open house, that 1) the aluminum Christmas Tree will be present and in grand form throughout the holidays and on through the event itself, and 2) sushi will be served. (Come to think of it, perhaps sushi on December 7 could have been misinterpreted).

 

Some days are just better than others, I guess.

It's been a disappointing last few hours. Last night I observed a beautiful historic interior space that had just been refitted with an amazing concentration of compact fluorescent-equipped fixtures with every engineer's favorite blue-white, 5000+ degree Kelvin bulbs. I like to preserve things from the past, but CFL's are a 1930's, toxin-laced technology that needs to die a quick, ugly death. I have also recently witnessed a demonstration of new LED lighting that, to my eye, was indiscernible from halogen lighting, so there is hope for the foreseeable future.

Perhaps the bigger problem arose this morning. While I am convinced that sustainability and preservation have a great deal in common, practitioners of the two concerns don't always play well together. For energy conservation, pretty much all communities that I know have adopted the International Energy Conservation Code. This code, like most others, is really targeted at new construction and generally lacks recognition of the unique needs of historic building. Right in the front of this national code, however, is a provision that seems to recognize the tension between existing and new and specifically exempts certified historic buildings from compliance. Today I find that my hometown of Dallas, while adopting the IECC, has added amendments that strip away this exemption. What is left only exempts compliance when compliance would result in loss of that historic certification. That's a pretty high bar with lots of opportunity to degrade and obscure historic structures before actually threatening certification. That could very well be the primary factor behind the CFL extravaganza I mentioned at the beginning of this post.

Downtown Dallas Post Office and Federal Courthouse set to open soon.

It's always gratifying when a major restoration project nears completion and the previously dreamed-of building becomes a reality. It has been announced that the historic Downtown Dallas Post Office and Federal Courthouse Building, now known as 400 North Ervay, will finally open to the public on October 7, a project where we began guiding the restoration and infrastructure work way back in 2007. Transfering the building from Federal ownership to private ownership entailed a Section 106 review process that was amazingly long and challenging, to say the very least. However, we were also blessed to be able to design and direct the restoration of the Federal Courtrooms and associated public areas, with their wood paneling, marble wainscoting and spectacular coffered and stenciled ceilings. Besides being steeped in history (this was Sarah T. Hughes Courtroom), it is one of the most beautiful interior spaces in Dallas. A glimpse of the project can be seen at the new 400 North Ervay website.

Our congratulations to Shawn Todd for his vision and his ceaseless energy in bringing this building back to the citizens of Dallas. As with any successful project it takes a team to pull it off. Other team members include:

Architecture Demerast of Dallas who are responsible for the design of the apartments themselves

Cindy Zelazny who provided interior design

James R. Thompson Construction who perfomed much of the restoration and infrastructure work

The construction arm of The Gables, who have constructed the apartments

BRW Architects who, under contract with the US Postal Service, updated the post office facility, guided restoration of the historic windows and restored the first floor public areas prior to the Federal Government's sale of the building.