Mike Garavaglia, AIA & LEED BD+C, President and Principal in Charge at Garavaglia Architecture, Inc., gave a talk on February 21st to members at the Sonoma League for Historic Preservation regarding the new California Historic Building Code (CHBC). The CHBC is a great tool to help home owners, architects, and contractors maintain and preserve historic structures by providing alternative building regulations for permitting repairs, alterations and additions necessary for the preservation, rehabilitation, relocation, related construction, change of use, or continued use of a “qualified” historical building or structure.
The CHBC also promotes sustainability by encouraging and promoting the reuse of historic buildings. Preservationists have long held the notion that historic preservation is an inherently sustainable activity and now we have some resources to back up this position. The National Trust for Historic Preservation‘s Preservation Green Lab is a fantastic resource if you are looking for just how preservation is “green”. We encourage you top download and read their latest: The Greenest Building: Quantifying the Environmental Value of Building Reuse.
The National Park Service has also just released its new sustainability guidelines, further reinforcing the position that sustainability and preservation go hand in hand.
For more information on the CHBC visit the DSA’s Historical Building Code site:
http://www.dgs.ca.gov/dsa/AboutUs/shbsb/2010chbc.aspx