Once I started my professional career as an Interior Designer back in 2012, I was exposed to multiple different project types that allowed me to grow professionally. My first job was for an architectural firm that focused mostly on collegiate projects. As time went by and projects were getting accomplished, I was beginning to feel comfortable. But soon after I started to feel that way, I received my biggest surprise. It was when a unique project was assigned to me. Unique in the sense that the task was to design living units and spaces for college students at a Downtown Historic Building from the 1920s.
You would ask, “what is so surprising about that?”.
Well, Let me tell you that it wasn’t just a Historic Building. It was a building that was vacant for a very long time, and I am not a fan of abandoned places. It makes me feel sad and melancholic. It also scares me. My mind starts to wonder about how was the spaces used. “Were people happy in there?” “Who walked through these hallways?”, and so on. I just can’t express enough how uneasy I felt while walking through those forgotten walls. That is how I look at it - as forgotten walls. I can’t also express enough how much excitement was awakened within me. I realized that design can happen here as well, and that something amazing can be created out of this old, unstable structure that once was full of life.
There are four different ways a Historic Structure can be approached:
Preservation: focuses on the maintenance and repair of existing historic materials.
Restoration: depicts a property at a particular period of time in its history.
Reconstruction: re-creates vanished or non-surviving portions of a property for interpretive purposes.
Rehabilitation: acknowledges the need to alter or add to a historic property to meet continuing or changing uses while retaining the property's historic character.
I am excited to be able to work in each one of these different approaches as it just challenges me in a different way each time; it has become a passion of mine. To think that something can be done to a structure that can provoke feelings when seen, when walked through. That futuristic vision of the old structure is what helps overcome that uneasy feeling when visiting those sites. I just need to look at it as what it is, a building that needs help from professional trades to make something special out of a forgotten, or underutilized structure. Perhaps, the structure is not forgotten, but it needs improvement to function better and last longer. It could also be that it just needs to be conserved. Despite the reasons, the opportunity to help whatever the cause is, ends up bringing great satisfaction. Not just as an individual, but to the community where the building resides.
When I was first brought to the team to work on what I would consider Historic Rehabilitation, I was very intrigued about how something in such a bad shape can be brought back to life? Will any of the solutions brought up to the table work? I am not going to lie, it was very challenging to imagine something when you have a pre-existing picture. A very overwhelming pre-existing picture. At least to me, I felt I was limited. There are parameters you must work with. The structure of the building needs to be stabilized and protected. Here was the difference between the other projects. Other projects were new constructions; therefore, design was more flexible.
Good thing that there are resources for designers to use. Books, internet, inspirational photos, etc. were all are ingredients to feed my creative mind in how to approach the new challenge. Conversations with the client and understanding their goals is also very important. Learning what can be removed and what not is also part of it. Is critical to also have an understanding of what must be reused in the space, to make sure you account for these items; where to store them in the meantime, how to remove it, how to treat it for conservation and re-installation, and so on. To me, there is a formula (not well defined as I am somewhat new to this) but there is a formula with a common denominator that can never be removed: The Historic Character. Whatever you do, it has to always be part of the final result.
As anything else, a correct answer to this formula can only be achieved with the right team in place. A complete collaboration with engineers, general contractor, landscape, subcontractors, clients, community members, fund providers, and so on - all form part of the team. They all play a role that is necessary for a project like this to be successful. In fact, for any project to be successful. I had a good experience with the team I was part of. We all were after the same goal which was to rehabilitate this old, abandoned building and make it into a residential facility for college students. Due to its location in the downtown, young vibrant talent started to flow in the streets.
What a great feeling. To be part of a movement that helps improve the vision of a community. What a great feeling to bring life back to a once forgotten structure. Because of that project, the research I needed to do to be able to make decisions, and the whole process I had to carefully go through, a passion was awakened that I once did not know I had. Interaction with a Historic element makes my design career a more complete one.
