4 posts categorized "PRC/Preserving Green"
Preserving Our Homes Sustainably: Old Windows Are Worth It
Informative piece from the National Trust for Historic Preservation (affiliated with the Preservation Resource Center of New Orleans):
Replacement versus retrofits? Weatherstripping versus storm windows? As preservationists you are probably confronted with questions, derision, and downright disbelief when you try to make the case for reusing existing windows. Happily, a new report just released by the Preservation Green Lab is sure to change the nature of the debate and make your advocacy a little easier.
This 59-page report, Saving Windows, Saving Money: Evaluating the Energy Performance of Window Retrofit and Replacement, was released today and is available on www.preservationnation.org/greenlab.
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Researchers set out to determine the potential energy savings related to common practices for upgrading older, existing single-pane residential windows. Variables such as climate, regional energy costs, heating system efficiency, and window system performance were evaluated to understand which options provide the greatest energy savings for homeowners. READ MORE >>
Reinvention 2010: What architects have learned from rethinking and rebuilding in New Orleans
The third and final day of Reinvention 2010 began with a panel of New Orleanians discussing the city’s rebuilding efforts. Byron Mouton, AIA, noted that “since the storm, there’s been more willingness to try things in a different way.” He showed two residences by his firm, Bild Design, as well as projects by the student design/build program he directs, Tulane URBANbuild. A main local concern, he said, is figuring out “how we move away from the earth while maintaining some connection with the neighborhood.”
Wayne Troyer, AIA, presented several projects that aim to improve local communities and work within the city’s built context. These included a 3-acre mixed-use project, an adaptive reuse of an old mill building, and the rebuilding of a fraternity house in the Uptown neighborhood. A net-zero, mixed-use project that provides job training and a small housing component will be ready for the American Institute of Architects’ national convention in spring 2011. Architect and developer Marcel Wisznia, AIA, showed a series of the multifamily, mixed-use projects he’s been able to put together by navigating the byzantine systems of federal and state tax credits for historic preservation and alternative energy. “The common thread here is pre-Katrina and post-Katrina, and that’s really how we live our lives,” he told the audience.
Steve Dumez, FAIA, of Eskew+Dumez+Ripple, said his firm was beginning to “rethink a way in which we can develop a more significant connection back to the water … more like the Dutch model of connectivity to the water’s edge.” He pointed out that “Katrina, for us, has been transformative. Katrina was not a natural disaster. It really was a failure of imagination and a failure of design, and it’s our responsibility as locals to do everything we can to get it right this time.”
“One of our major goals is to understand the concept of innovation and replication,” said Tim Duggan, a landscape architect with Brad Pitt’s Make It Right Foundation. He noted the different building methods the foundation has been trying and also the green landscape techniques used throughout the Make It Right project, which so far has built 52 houses in the Ninth Ward neighborhood. Policy associate Linda Stone of Global Green presented her organization’s Holy Cross neighborhood project containing five houses, a multifamily building, and a community center. READ MORE >>
Next American City: Reconstructing New Orleans through Deconstruction
PHOTO: Next American City
Located in the Lower 9th Ward in New Orleans, 5200 Dauphine was a storied, if not derelict, building post-Katrina. The 100-year old “camelback shotgun,” a two–story adaptation of the famous NOLA housing prototype, had acted first as a family residence and later as a neighborhood sandwich shop. The Preservation Resource Center (PRC) originally purchased the property with restoration in mind. However, years of neglect compounded by the floodwaters following Katrina left the bones of the building unsalvageable.
For a nonprofit whose mission is to rebuild historic buildings in blighted areas, the idea of razing the structure to build anew was unsettling. Architect Wayne Troyer of studio WTAoffered an alternative: preservation through deconstruction. By carefully dismantling the building, the project team could preserve and catalogue high quality materials that reduced project costs and spoke of the narrative of the place. Through this effort, nearly 60% of the original building was salvaged. READ MORE >>
via americancity.org