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Present: William Barlow, William Barry, David Bliss, Matthew Bronski, Jean Carroon, Amy Cole-Ives, Susanna Devoe, Taya Dixon, Marilyn Fenollosa, Stephen Feige, John Fidler, Jesse Foote, Robert Fulmer, Nicole Goldman, Jeffrey Harris, David M. Hart, John Hecker, Carl Jay, Marta Kabalin, David Kelman, David King, Katherine Kucharski, Krista McFadden, Katie McLaughlin, Doug Manley, Henry Moss, Ivan Myjer, Ratish Nanda, Elizabeth Randall, Roberto Rosa, Noah Rosenfield, Susan Schur, Malcolm Smiley, Peter Smith, David Torrey, Eric Ward, Douglas Wohn and Sally Zimmerman 1. Boston City Hall - Boston Landmark nomination: Committee members who had attended the Boston Landmarks Commission hearing on the petitioners' proposal that Boston City Hall be designated a local landmark reported their observations on the testimonies and commissioners' discussion. The City's Environment Department said that there was no way to fit the necessary study into their work plan. There are petitions from 1988 that are still not supported or dismissed by study reports. Other nations have developed different strategies for dealing with landmark-quality architecture from the recent past. English Heritage did away with the 50-year rule. The U. S. Department of the Interior waived this threshold for Dulles Airport. [Meanwhile, the City may have considered that Boston City Hall has already been designated as Eligible for Listing on the National Register.] Several committee members noted that the BLC is and for a number of years has been understaffed. The National Trust for Historic Preservation is particularly concerned about this weakness among the City's departments and included this observation in their testimony at the hearing. 2. Sustainable Design and Historic Buildings: Jean Carroon of Jean Carroon/Goody Clancy has practiced thoughtful approaches to sustainable design in highly significant historic structures for the past decade, and during the past few years, has expanded the influence of her team's efforts by lecturing at national and regional gatherings of design and preservation professionals. She brought some of her ideas and experiences to our committee. Jean began by tracing awareness of the relationship between the earth and its atmosphere. By the early 1800's, scientists knew that large-scale events on earth could affect the atmosphere and that the relation was reciprocal. By the mid-19th century, there was a developing understanding of the roles of carbon dioxide and methane. A further 128 years saw publication of the 1987 UN report on the global environment that confirmed the relationship between "greenhouse gases" and warming of the atmosphere. Jean pointed out that 40% of energy consumption in the United States is linked to buildings, but that buildings only contribute 30% of our greenhouse gases on an annual basis. Of that 30% about 70% is electricity (usually created in coal-fueled plants). She noted that energy management in buildings is not just a matter of improved envelope design to improve control of heat gain and heat loss. The Illinois State Historic Preservation Officer has issued a study that shows buildings constructed prior to 1959 use less energy than those built afterwards. Jean lamented the disappearance of canvas awnings that once reduced heat gain and asked if wholesale window replacement today is a better solution in terms of embodied energy and costs of operation. There are huge transmission losses in electrical distribution required for cooling, lighting, and running office equipment. Jean and Stephen Feige pointed to the example of the Harvard Green Campus Initiative's efforts to reduce plug loads in all Harvard buildings. Meanwhile, transportation is the greatest contributor to greenhouse gas production in the United States. Jean emphasized that the preservation community is not at the forefront of the current green building initiatives. In spite of statistics that show more than 50% of architectural construction projects involve existing buildings, "building" is still assumed to involve new construction. Jean referred to studies at Carnegie Mellon and in Australia that show new construction creates 1.5 times more greenhouse gases than do renovation projects, which also produce more jobs and more local employment. Among these studies are life cycle cost analyses that show that a 100-year life building takes 20 years just to pay back its embodied energy cost. The Association of Preservation Technology International (APTI) website has begun to track embodied energy studies. The explosive growth of the United States Green Building Council's LEED program during the past five years has helped bring sustainable design into the project definition phase. Similar metrics in other countries have pushed conflicts between building performance and historic preservation to the foreground. Jean noted that HISTORIC WINDOWS are on the National Trust's Ten Most Endangered nomination list. Her firm is the architect for the renovation of the McCormick Building in Post Office Square, where the Environmental Protection Agency has offices. EPA has stringent energy performance standards; 1600 historic aluminum windows will be removed from the Cram & Ferguson structure. Jean said that the least used LEED point is the third level under Building Retention. Historic rehab projects are making some headway while using the LEED certification framework. A historic armory in Portland Oregon gained a LEED Platinum rating and qualified for a full historic preservation tax credit. Jean sees these trends as promising early steps while urging architects to maintain a thoughtful skepticism about the most effective measures for sustainable design. John Fidler (having moved from English Heritage to Simpson Gumpertz & Heger) said that the next threshold of perception might be to take account of embodied energy in whole-life costing in ways that allow fruitful comparisons. This could lead to a way beyond the framework for decisions created by the 30-year accounting system that is typically applied. John also observed that global warming is likely to bring new pressures to bear on historic structures and that greater sensitivity to air and water quality will create new constraints on treatments. English Heritage published a study by the University College London Center for Sustainable Heritage on climate change effects on historic resources. 8: 00 a.m., Thursday, June 14, 2007 Featuring John Fidler "Preservation accreditation, training and crafts skills development in England - lessons for the USA?" at The Architects' Building, 52 Broad Street, Boston, Fifth Floor
Henry Moss, Matthew Bronski, and Sara Wermiel co-leaders and scribes
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