Panel #4 | Structural Adaptations

Panel #4 | Structural Adaptations

Session chair: Ashley Wilson, AIA, ASID, National Trust for Historic Preservation

Meisha Hunter Burkett | Senior Preservationist, LiI/Saltzman Architects, New York, NY
Silent and Unseen: Historic Water Infrastructure and Global Climate Change

Lindsay S. Hannah | Project Manager and Architectural Historian | and Kate Kuranda, Senior Vice President, R. Christopher Goodwin & Associates, Inc., New Orleans, LA
Ain’t No Foundation High Enough: The Conundrum of Elevation

Janet Cakir | Climate Change Adaptation and Socioeconomics Coordinator, NPS
Making Decisions in the Context of Climate Change

Elizabeth English | Department of Architecture, University of Waterloo
Amphibious Architecture: Where Flood Risk Reduction Meets Climate Change Adaptation


 

SESSION ABSTRACTS

Silent and Unseen: Historic Water Infrastructure and Global Climate Change

In the wake of a growing number of extreme weather events in the United States and around the world attributed to Global Climate Change (GCC), retrofitting historic buildings and sites in coastal locations to mitigate or prevent future flooding has become increasingly urgent. While multidisciplinary research, design and construction of appropriate resiliency upgrades for at-risk heritage continues, it is necessary to expand the scope of preservation discussions to include the stewardship of historic infrastructure within active water delivery and drainage systems in coastal areas. Arguably, the intersection of climate change, heritage and water infrastructure has seldom been the subject of robust, interdisciplinary dialogue amongst water managers, preservationists, planners, policy makers and engineers. If we collectively seek to “keep our heritage above water” then the scope of professional problem solving for historic resources in the face of GCC must address both the silent and unseen water infrastructure below as well as the at-grade heritage above. | Meisha Hunter Burkett

Ain’t No Foundation High Enough: The Conundrum of Elevation

Historic buildings in flood prone areas face the constant threat that even minor flooding can damage historic materials, devalue the property, and threaten the preservation of the heritage resource   Repeated flooding events amplify these problems. One obvious solution, to elevate the building above the threat, is a loaded one. Elevating a historic building to ten or fifteen feet above its historic location can turn a shotgun cottage into a long legged spider, peering down on its neighbors and affecting the historic streetscape to which it was once an integral part. Maintaining the building at its historic height makes it vulnerable to future flood events.

The field of historic preservation has traditionally taken a hardline stance against building elevation. However, the impacts of recent storm events, climate change, and inadequate infrastructure, warrant reexamination of this adaptation strategy in light of the threats to historic coastal communities. This presentation will examine the traditional historic preservation response to the elevation of historic properties and the complex issues related to building elevation including historic and design character community authenticity, and disaster mitigation. | Lindsay S. Hannah

Making Decisions in the Context of Climate Change

This presentation describes a pilot study of a climate-related cultural resource planning effort for two historic villages (Portsmouth Village and Lookout Village) at Cape Lookout National Seashore (CALO). Managers of CALO are currently seeking to envision plausible conditions related to sea level rise and storm surge within the next 20 to 30 years and develop feasible management strategies for the historic structures and features within the two villages.  Values and objectives are used in the development of a cultural resources vulnerability assessment (CRVI).  The aims of the CRVI are to facilitate decision-analysis during the SDM and serve as an initial effort to assess the possibility of landscape-level cultural resource decision-making. | Janet Cakir 

Amphibious Architecture: Where Flood Risk Reduction Meets Climate Change Adaptation

As global climate change causes sea levels to rise and weather events become more extreme, severe flooding will become more commonplace around the world. The large populations living in deltaic or riverine floodplain regions will be particularly severely affected.  Amphibious housing presents intriguing possibilities in the quest for sustainable responses to the impending global climate change crisis.  Climate adaptation strategies will require the development of suitable new housing types and retrofit strategies for populated regions where flooding is expected to increase.  Amphibious housing is one such possible solution.  Amphibious foundation systems refer to either new or retrofit construction that allows a house to remain close to the ground and retain the appearance of an ordinary house, but to rise with rising floodwater and float on the surface until the flood recedes, at which time it settles back exactly into its original position. | Elizabeth English