Principles of Conservation have an inherent leanness and elegant simplicity. In short:
- Think before you act – understand not only the physical building, setting and context, but also its significance.
- When you change something, make this a minimal intervention – maybe radical – but no more than it needs.
- Design for flexibility.
- Make the new authentically new.
This approach requires a love and understanding not only of forms, materials and methods of construction of the city, but also the ideas, forces, rhythms, human needs of those who shape it. If it’s true for important historic places, why shouldn’t it also be true for every place, especially new development? To understand the present we must know our velocity. Conservation is a specialist arm of sustainability.
The Air. At the heart of architecture is a paradox: what is valuable in a building is not the building itself but the ability to live in it. It is the space – the shape of the air, which we can hear but not see. Architecture is a spatial art. Air is free.
For MBA Conservation Brochure click here: Conservation Brochure.