Steve Nicholas, Executive Director of the City of Seattle's Office of Sustainability has been quoted as saying that if he does his job right, he won't have a job (Daily Journal of Commerce, May 22, 2001, p.3). By this, he means that sustainability is an ethic that should be an integral part of the way the city does things, not a discrete public policy department.

Critical Parallels

While many people associate sustainability with environmentalism, the relationship between historic preservation and sustainability is quite close, with a few critical intersections. Sustainability is a holistic planning approach, a comprehensive long-view of development that protects the environment as one of its outcomes. Nurturing the cultural environment is another.

A primary tenet of sustainability, mentioned but not often (locally) elaborated upon, is nurturance of art, history, and unique places. In his closing paragraph to a piece on "holistic planning," Jeffrey D. Bates (AIA, principal with CollinsWoerman, a Bellevue-based architecture and interior design firm) asserts that "by adopting a more holistic and inclusive style to master-planning, architects can help new developments take their place in our communities so that once again we can "love places already made."

In its introduction to sustainability, the City of Seattle web page on the subject asserts an element which directly parallels preservation ethics: "saving what's special, sustainability is not some remote, esoteric issue talked about at universities and think tanks; it's about saving what's special right here in our city."

In spite of these conceptual intersections, the relationship between historic preservation and sustainability is not, in any form, mentioned or alluded to in Seattle's Comprehensive Plan "Toward a Sustainable Seattle." That document was created with assistance from Sustainable Seattle, one of this country's most respected sustainability advocacy groups. This organization defines its mission as follows, "to protect and improve the long-term health and vitality for our region and the world by applying sustainability to the links between economic prosperity, environmental vitality, and social equity." Sustainable Seattle, enthusiastically supported in its early days, has recently struggled to fund itself. As a preservationist and supporter of sustainability's integrated approach to master planning, I hope the local movement will more directly connect with historic preservation and adaptive reuse projects. Creative partnerships, aided by local government's blessing (i.e. incentives), could develop a number of existing "places" through a sustainable methodology.

Integrated Systems

William (Bill) McDonough, one of the most outspoken and well-respected advocates for sustainability was dean of the Campbell School of Architecture at the University of Virginia in the mid-1990s when I was a graduate student there. The program, an interdisciplinary quartet of architectural history, architecture, landscape architecture, and planning, well suited the "Green Dean" and his sustainable ethics.

McDonough's "Hannover Principles, which he developed well before the 2000 World's Fair in Hannover, Germany, describe sustainability as an integrated system of design, planning, environmentalism and to some degree, historic preservation. One of these principles speaks directly to the incorporation of the past into ethical, sustainable design:

"3. Respect relationships between spirit and matter. Consider all aspects of human settlement, including community, dwelling, industry, and trade in terms of existing and evolving connections between spiritual and material consciousness."

Though a little on the academic side, the concept is simple, inherently practical, and primarily preservationist.

Regional Model

The Seattle Daily Journal of Commerce's environmental editor David Jackson recently reported on a sustainable building project in Portland that serves as a model for sustainable historic preservation closer to home. The Ecotrust, a nonprofit group dedicated to establishing a "conservation economy" along the rainforest coast of the Pacific Northwest recently purchased an 1895 warehouse building in Portland's industrial Pearl District, and developed it into their new headquarters. The organization reused 98 percent of construction debris in the project.

The building is a model to both sustainability and historic preservation advocates. The project was funded because it was unique and illustrated the ethics championed by the Ecotrust. This sort of development is an excellent intersection, describing how a developer might pool together funding from two heretofore separate project categories. The project's development team involved local businesses (an architecture firm, construction firm, engineering firm, and historic resource consultancy). Every benefit to the community was considered within this project - I have mentioned it before in a past article and will probably mention it again, just because it demonstrates a great opportunity.

Sustainable Future

Steve Nicholas was hired in November of 2000 to head the Office of Sustainability, created only a few months earlier. The fledgling office's staff is minimal, and currently waiting for the city's departmental structure to crystallize. Jane Jacob's groundbreaking book, The Life and Death of Great American Cities, part of the canon for many preservationists, lies propped up against a drawing surface in Nicholas's Key Tower office. When I asked him about potential partnerships between preservation and sustainability, he confessed that he hadn't thought about it much.

He added, however, "how cool it would be to be involved in a project like (Ecotrust's in Portland)." His office is also poised to work with the Department of Neighborhoods, which houses Seattle's preservation office. The City of Seattle also has a citywide sustainability program coordinator, staffing that further sweetens the possibility of partnerships.

Somewhere in Seattle lies our first sustainable preservation project. Seattle is the Emerald City after all.

View last month's Preservation & Environment article

Back to Top