Conservation – Planning – Design – Interpretation
Conservation
Methodology
What we call the Conservation Management Plan forms the basis of any subsequent interventions on a site. The plan identifies historic elements, contextualises their role within the landscape’s historic design and function, documents their current condition, and identifies the steps necessary to ensure their preservation. The plan is based on a thorough analysis of the site, its topography, vegetation and structures, and an intensive study of any surviving images and documents.
The Conservation Plan is the most technically demanding phase of my work. It is also the most important, as it constitutes a permanent record of the site’s condition before any intervention is contemplated. The plan will also identify whether the site requires the intervention of any additional professional services – such as archaeologists, conservation architects, horticultural engineers, and ecologists. It will identify security risks if the site is eventually to be opened to the public.
Design Methodology
in an Historic Context
Design in an historic context is not like design everywhere else. Granted, every site has its history, and that should always play a role in how we re-imagine it, but an historic site contains elements, or associations, that are of such significance that they must guide and be integrated into the future life of the site. There is no contradiction in the notion of incorporating a site’s historic life into a comprehensible, coherent and aesthetically pleasing whole, it just entails a certain degree of sensitivity and awareness. For some sites, this is as much a question of storytelling as it of design. Here the work can be not so much about modifying the site in any great degree, as about defining the manner in which the visitor perceives this place, and comprehends its history and historical associations.
I believe that changes to a site should proceed gradually, and be implemented with a long view of its eventual development. The strategy towards a given site should also be allowed to evolve organically in reaction to discoveries that are made during the work. A respect for the ecological integrity and the natural processes at work on a site should define the character and the means through which any intervention is implemented. The care of an historic ensemble demands an extreme pragmatism, and a willingness to look upon design simply as the initiation of a series of natural processes that will produce an ever-changing and evolving effect.
Lastly, I am a strong believer in the importance of patina, of presenting an historic composition ‘dans son jus’. I do not believe in restorations that create a cinematic evocation of another age. Rather, I believe that our work must celebrates the real beauty of landscape as a historic tissue, with all of its bruises and its layering intact. I believe that interventions should speak in a contemporary language and should not rely on pastiches or period garb to fit in. The present should also read as an integral component of a site’s story.
Planning
Methodology
Planning for the adaptive re-use of an historic ensemble is also sometimes an integral part of a Conservation Management Planning. For sites that have changed their use, or for which development is planned, an identification and prioritisation of historic elements is key to ensuring that future development plans respect and build upon the site’s past and its unique qualities. Conservation of historic elements is not necessarily a static state, and the presence and understanding of a history, and the incorporation of that past into the present, can enrich the design and future life of a site, and add to its overall economic viability.
Consulting for institutions that are experiencing growth, and private or public entities that want to reinvigorate dormant sites with a new use and character is an important part of my work, and one that is not in conflict with my principles as a conservationist. Well-considered in-fill development within existing urban and suburban fabrics is one of the most ecologically viable methods of ensuring responsible development. Cities and institutions frozen within their historic identities lose the dynamism that once made them great, and adaptation to new uses and conditions is sometimes the only thing that can keep a site from being de-natured altogether.
Interpretative
Methodology
The Interpretation of a site includes the design and production of maps, signage, guidebooks, and other materials that define the visitor’s understanding of the site and its story, as well as the sequence and the manner in which the visitor explores it. An intelligent approach to interpretive materials can animate a site in the mind of the visitor, without necessitating an aggressive transformation of its fabric. Web-sites, audio-guides, and temporary installations can all make a site more accessible to a broader public, and can be done in such a way as to respect a site’s inherent calm and historic integrity. So much interpretive material is overly didactic, intrusive and simply disrespectful of the overall aesthetic experience of place. The goal of my work is to create materials that blend subtly into the visitor’s experience of the nature of a site, and that deepen the visitor’s understanding of its past and present with all of its poetry and mystery intact.
Some of the most important interpretive materials are those that are not to be found on the site at all. A well-written and well-placed article, web-site or publication can be all that is necessary to re-define a site in the eyes of the visitor and entice them to come and discover it. Such materials can get the public involved in supporting or participating in the revalorisation of a site and can capitalise on the material collected and prepared in the research-phase of a project.