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  #21  
Old Posted Jun 14, 2018, 8:13 PM
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MonkeyRonin MonkeyRonin is offline
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Originally Posted by JManc View Post
Problem is that a church building is kinda hard to reuse. Well, except for this option

Churches are pretty easy to convert to a number of new uses. Aside from the apartments & houses that have been mentioned (and which usually command a premium since they have a historic character that can't be replicated in an entirely new construction), they can - depending on their location - make for great spaces for nightclubs, restaurants, community centres, theatres, event spaces, shops, and even offices.
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  #22  
Old Posted Jun 15, 2018, 12:19 AM
montréaliste montréaliste is online now
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Originally Posted by The North One View Post
Cities like Chicago have plenty of room to develop without destroying any historical buildings. Cities like San Francisco have a much harder time.

We need to be much more strict in preservation in this country and we need to offer more benefits to people who want to renovate and restore historical structures (which also proves to be very economically beneficial so it's a win-win).
Absolutely. Once them there beauties are gone, they're a goner.
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  #23  
Old Posted Jun 15, 2018, 2:07 AM
Dblcut3 Dblcut3 is offline
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Going back to Schenley Farms in Oakland (Pittsburgh), I really think this is a perfect example of a neighborhood that should be preserved. I have no doubt that if there wasn't a huge movement to keep it how it is that it would be overrun by boring run-of-the-mill apartments and ugly mid-rise office buildings. Frankly, having a mix of historic mansions and mid-rise buildings would feel very strange and would ruin their neighborhood's character. I think it was an endangered neighborhood due to the growing campuses around it, making it a perfect candidate for preservation.


I personally believe that new buildings in old neighborhoods should try their best to fit in with the architecture/characteristics of the surrounding neighborhood. If not, you get a historic neighborhood with really random and often ugly modern buildings mixed in - this in turn ruins the fabric of the historic neighborhood.
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  #24  
Old Posted Jun 15, 2018, 4:08 AM
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buildings fall apart, styles come and go, but SCALE will always be relative. aesthetic design review should be tossed out the window or at the very least take a back seat to the scale of the structure in relation to the local context. london is neat. you see all sorts of modern stuff, next to brutalist stuff, next to edwardian stuff. mishmash is fine, but make sure the scale of your new project is cohesive.
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  #25  
Old Posted Jun 15, 2018, 12:10 PM
eschaton eschaton is offline
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Originally Posted by Dblcut3 View Post
Going back to Schenley Farms in Oakland (Pittsburgh), I really think this is a perfect example of a neighborhood that should be preserved. I have no doubt that if there wasn't a huge movement to keep it how it is that it would be overrun by boring run-of-the-mill apartments and ugly mid-rise office buildings. Frankly, having a mix of historic mansions and mid-rise buildings would feel very strange and would ruin their neighborhood's character. I think it was an endangered neighborhood due to the growing campuses around it, making it a perfect candidate for preservation.


I personally believe that new buildings in old neighborhoods should try their best to fit in with the architecture/characteristics of the surrounding neighborhood. If not, you get a historic neighborhood with really random and often ugly modern buildings mixed in - this in turn ruins the fabric of the historic neighborhood.
I was sort of playing devil's advocate with Schenley Farms. However, on this location nearby, there were formerly six historic homes (one is around the corner on the cross street. They have since been demolished to make way for a new residential high-rise now under construction (329 units). I actually knew a few preservationists who were trying to save them, but it was, IMHO, the wrong idea, because those apartments (which are student-focused) will actually save tons of homes from becoming student slum rentals.

Now, there are differences of course. Although those homes were grand Victorians in their time, most of them had been chopped up inside into apartments. Many had unsympathetic facade changes like porch removal (common in Pittsburgh for rental housing) as well. And that area was mostly converted over from single-family homes to dense multifamily decades ago, so this was just finishing the job. Honestly in general if there's no hope of a remuddled chopped-up single-family home ever being properly restored, I'm A-OK with it being replaced by higher-density multifamily.

I wasn't so much arguing that Schenley Farms should lose historic designation, than I was making the point that if it didn't have protection, it would likely be part of North Oakland's high-density belt and/or Pitt's campus, which would, arguably, be a higher and better use today.
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  #26  
Old Posted Jun 15, 2018, 1:26 PM
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Originally Posted by The North One View Post
Cities like Chicago have plenty of room to develop without destroying any historical buildings. Cities like San Francisco have a much harder time.

We need to be much more strict in preservation in this country and we need to offer more benefits to people who want to renovate and restore historical structures (which also proves to be very economically beneficial so it's a win-win).
San Francisco has plenty of space to redevelop without sacrificing anything historical too. It’s just that no one really wants to live in the western part of the peninsula due to the weather.
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  #27  
Old Posted Jun 15, 2018, 1:48 PM
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Originally Posted by 10023 View Post
San Francisco has plenty of space to redevelop without sacrificing anything historical too. It’s just that no one really wants to live in the western part of the peninsula due to the weather.
By "no one" do you mean no one white? It sure seems like a lot of Asians live there.
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  #28  
Old Posted Jun 15, 2018, 2:26 PM
Crawford Crawford is offline
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Originally Posted by eschaton View Post

I wasn't so much arguing that Schenley Farms should lose historic designation, than I was making the point that if it didn't have protection, it would likely be part of North Oakland's high-density belt and/or Pitt's campus, which would, arguably, be a higher and better use today.
It's possible, because the enrollment and staff counts at the university likely aren't impacted by the presence of Schenley Farms (and that's what's driving the development), but why wouldn't the present outcome be a better public policy scenario? The development that would have eviscerated Schenley Farms was directed elsewhere.
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