Archive note: I conducted this interview for the National Center for Preservation Technology and Training’s Preservation Technology Podcast. It was originally published by NCPTT/National Park Service on March 2, 2011. I’m preserving a record of the conversation here as part of my podcast and interview archive. The original NCPTT/NPS source remains the authoritative publication.
From the transcript
The questions push beyond whether individual adaptive-reuse projects are successful. I ask what it means to say that adaptation requires reuse, why some city-scale approaches work and others do not, and what other communities can learn from those differences. The shift in scale—from a building to the systems shaping an entire city—is what makes this interview especially interesting in retrospect.
In this conversation
- Adaptive reuse as a city-scale strategy rather than a series of isolated preservation projects
- How historic preservation, real-estate development, sustainability, economics, and urban policy interact
- The environmental argument for reusing existing buildings instead of continually replacing them
- The “triple bottom line” of environmental, economic, and social value in redevelopment decisions
- Comparisons among cities that have taken different approaches to preservation, growth, and reuse
- Why some communities create productive conditions for adaptive reuse while others struggle to do so
- The role of policy, markets, culture, and public expectations in determining what gets reused
- What preservationists can learn by shifting the unit of analysis from an individual building to an entire urban system
Aaron Lubeck returns to discuss adaptive reuse at the scale of cities. Using contrasting urban examples, he considers reuse, development, sustainability, the “triple bottom line,” and what communities can learn from places that find a workable balance between preservation and change.
Series: Preservation Technology Podcast
Episode: 029
Guest: Aaron Lubeck
Interviewer: Jeff Guin
Original publisher: National Center for Preservation Technology and Training / National Park Service
Theme: Sustainability & Adaptive Reuse
Listen, read the transcript, and view the original episode at the National Park Service.
Preservation note: A preservation copy of the original MP3 is retained in the Voices of the Past archive.
Catalog Card
Archive Note
This 2011 Preservation Technology Podcast episode examines how preservation, real estate, sustainability, markets, and urban policy interact.
What Remains
City-scale reuse has become a major planning and sustainability concern, and the systems perspective in this interview remains especially relevant.
Critical Questions
This artifact contributes to more than one recurring question in the archive:
- What happens when useful tools become systems we depend on?
- How do we make knowledge more accessible without losing its meaning?
Know something that adds context, documentation, correction, or firsthand knowledge to this record? Keep this page open and copy its URL into the contribution form.
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