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Present: Mark Almeda, David Bliss, Chiara L. Casco, Charles Clute, Marilyn Fenollosa, John Fidler, Jeffrey Harris, David M. Hart, John Hecker, Wendall Kalsow, Sarah Kelly, David Kelman, David King, , Doug Manley, Henry Moss, Ivan Myjer, Maia Brindley Nilsson, Elizabeth Randall, Roberto Rosa, Susan Schur, Malcolm Smiley, Jonathan Smith, Jane Toland, Sara Wermiel, Margaret Wray, and Sally Zimmerman 1. Boston City Hall: Sarah Kelly, Executive Director of the Boston Preservation Alliance (BPA) announced their coming event (that evening!) at First Church, Marlborough Street, about the significance and the history of Boston City Hall, with committee member Gary Wolf speaking. Discussion proved that several groups in the Boston area continue to consider ways to improve the city's approach to management and modernization of City Hall and City Hall Plaza. The next issue of Architecture Boston will be dedicated to contemporary approaches to integration of the building and its setting into the city's current patterns of activity, real estate investment, and public spaces. 2. Sustainable Design and Historic Buildings: A brief discussion followed up on issues raised by Jean Carroon's presentation at the previous committee meeting and centered on the topic of "embodied energy." Henry suggested that embodied energy become the central subject for one of the committee's fall meetings and encouraged everyone to find a copy of APT Bulletin, 2005 Volume XXXVI No. 4 ["Embodied Energy- A Needed Reassessment" by Mike Jackson pp. 47-52]. John Fidler emphasized the difficulty in using the concept of embodied energy when comparing the costs of renovation with new construction, when accounting systems consider buildings to have only sunk costs after 30 years. Carbon content is lost to the ledgers unless accounting rules are changed. 3. Building Crafts & Training, the English Heritage Experience: John Fidler presented a sweeping overview of the British government's work to retain and revive traditional building craft skills. Since 1947, the state has controlled training of apprentices in the UK, but training is aimed at new construction, not traditional crafts. The project entailed a series of research initiatives, beginning with estimates of supply of skilled craftspeople and likely demand for them by the construction industry, with the goal of improving training programs. A result of this work is the report, "Traditional Building Craft Skills: Skills needs analysis of the building heritage sector in England 2005," http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/upload/pdf/craft_skills_report.pdf. From a $2.5M study funded by the Construction Industry Levy (where employers of more than 12 people contribute a percentage of their turnover), some figures emerged to guide new programs designed to recruit, train, and retain competent craftspeople. Although "repairs, maintenance and improvement" is difficult to track, work to existing buildings in the UK approximates 50% of expenditure on construction. In the USA the percentage is somewhat lower, about 42%. Specialists in traditional trades - masonry restoration, thatching, stone carving, timber framing - account for 2.4% of the UK workforce, only about 36,000 people. English Heritage anticipated acute shortages of competent craftspeople. The National Lottery Fund underwrote programs that supported English Heritage's efforts to develop more attractive career paths, recruit more females, send young artisans to speak to school groups, establish regional training centers, and tie government restoration grants to the skill levels of the proposed workforce. Other studies related to this work that John mentioned are, "Power of Place" (2000) http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/server/show/nav.1447; "A Force for Our Future" (2001) http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/server/show/conWebDoc.4454; "Sustaining Our Living Heritage" (2002). John could see progress as a result of these efforts over the past five years, but he noted a simultaneous deterioration in building conservation education in the UK: no increase in accommodation of historic preservation in architectural or engineering training. Unsubstantiated claims of competence in historic preservation by practicing architects have led the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) to consider portfolio reviews by panels of peers as a way of giving credentials to competent members. [Note: the RIBA is not the licensing body for architects. It is comparable to the AIA.] John said that the preservation programs at University of Pennsylvania and Columbia are "infinitely superior to their UK counterparts." Sally Zimmerman and Ivan Myjer spoke about the Preservation Trades Network in Rhode Island and about a Federal and State Labor Departments' partial funding of a traditional building crafts course in South Carolina. Ivan also described the demise of the cathedral stoneworks at St. John the Divine, for lack of operational funding. John said that comparable cathedral yards and workshops for masonry and stained glass in the UK are classified as "direct labor organizations" and their work is exempt from Value Added Tax, a significant competitive advantage. SPNEA's erstwhile Conservation Center would have been a comparable tax-exempt entity in this country. No one among the committee could articulate a simple comparison of the relative needs of the UK and the USA in terms of the supply and demand for craftspeople in the building trades, but it was clear that English Heritage had established a powerful model for how forecasting could follow from a statistical survey (a major effort) and for how recruitment might follow. 4. H. H. Richardson House, National Trust for Historic Preservation, 11 Most Endangered Announcement: You heard it first at this meeting! Parties in the know whispered that there would be a formal announcement of the inclusion of H. H. Richardson's Brookline home on the Trust's 11 Most Endangered list on the morning of the meeting. Adam Galper, Marilyn Fenollosa, Gary Wolf, Elizabeth Randall and others from our committee have been persistent advocates for preservation of this Caribbean Planter style house, but the real estate pressures of high site value and limited opportunity for compatible additional development are severe. 5. Save the Date for Strawberry Banke: Saturday, September 22
8: 00 a.m., Thursday, July 12 Featuring Richard L'Hereux of DCAM with added insights from Goody/Clancy on Retention and Disposal of Historic Courthouses
There will be no August meeting !
Henry Moss, Matthew Bronski, and Sara Wermiel co-leaders and scribes
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