On this tour, we will be looking at heritage and historic buildings in the era of megaprojects. Increasingly, proposals that involve heritage buildings subsume them under much larger additions.The generally accepted idea by heritage professionals is that the heritage asset/building takes main consideration with the building addition being subordinate to it. With some recent local proposals, this may not seem to be the case. We go through several large projects involving historic buildings around the downtown area and discuss some of the reasons that have been given for the scope. We look at the historic context of these buildings and also discuss in easily understandable terms, some of the standards and guidelines that heritage professionals apply to historic sites. We also discuss the more well-known method of density transfer that has been used as a way to manage change to historic buildings.
The tour will be led by Heritage Vancouver board member Alasdair Butcher.
About Alasdair
Alasdair is the founder of Vancouver DeTours, a walking tour organization that celebrates the ‘pedagogy of the pedestrian’, and has been leading walks and giving guest lectures on the more obscure aspects of the city’s history to anyone who will listen since 2008. He recently completed his Masters in Urban Studies at SFU, sits on the Vancouver City Planning Commission, and is a Director at the Heritage Vancouver Society.
