Saving Historic Buildings: Strategies for Remediating Structural Deterioration

This event consists of a presentation and panel discussion hosted at the Landmarks Preservation Commission Hearing Room.

With over 38,000 buildings designated either as individual landmarks or part of a landmarked district, there is a wide range of issues structural engineers may encounter when confronted with a severely deteriorated landmarked building – and similar concerns certainly apply also to existing buildings not officially designated as landmarks. This event will highlight some of those issues, as well as discuss the administrative and regulatory framework through which a project team may have to navigate when dealing with this type of structure. The focus will be on common townhouse-scale buildings which are more likely to fall into poor condition due to lack of maintenance.

Working with existing buildings requires a range of degrees of intervention – maintenance, stabilization, restoration, renovation. While much attention is paid to restoration and renovation, architects, engineers, and affiliated consultants have an essential role in maintenance and stabilization. In New York, recent conversations about aging building stock and deterioration of abandoned buildings have highlighted the role of structural engineers in preventing the loss of historically sensitive or landmarked buildings.

During general discussion of the presence of landmarked or historic buildings, much attention is paid to major institutional landmarks and important cultural buildings with protected features – for many of these structures, significant effort and resources are invested in ensuring their survival and maintenance. However, from a numerical perspective, those commonly discussed buildings represent a relatively small proportion of protected buildings – this event will instead focus on oft-overlooked landmarks where a smaller scale requires a different kind of judgement and strategy.