Why we love historic preservation

February 27, 2024

Kimberly Butt, Vance Kelley, Joy Coleman, Nancy Goldenberg, Megan Cooper

Design, Community, Sustainability

Historic Preservation, National Preservation Month

Listen to the episode

Celebrating the importance of historic preservation

During National Preservation Month, our Historic Preservation studio celebrates the importance of historic places and the heritage of these places and spaces that define our history and shape our future. At Treanor, we provide planning and architectural design services for historic preservation projects—including restoration, rehabilitation, and adaptive reuse. Our preservation specialists love what they do and go above and beyond to make sure historically significant buildings serve well into the future.

“I just love being able to explore and go into the historic buildings. I enjoy going down to see the mechanical room or going up into the attic to see where they’re storing all the extra pieces.”
Kim Butt, Principal, Treanor

Architect by day, detective by day

In this episode of Treanor Talks, our preservation architects dive deep into their career progression and what brought them into this field of architecture. They share their thoughts about the importance of the profession and what it means to preserve history—good and bad. You’ll also hear interesting stories about projects they’ve worked on, and what tools they use to help them do their jobs as building detectives.

“It goes back to the connection of the story to the buildings. A building is just a building until you really start to understand why it was built.”
Vance Kelley, Principal, Treanor

Historic preservation architects have the opportunity to help clients discover the importance of their building’s history, as well as improve the building’s sustainable performance for the future. While some may see that as a balancing act without reconciliation, we see the preservation of historic buildings as a clear sustainable solution.

“Preservation really is sustainability,” says Nancy. “We’re recycling buildings. We’re saving all that embodied carbon. It is inherently highly sustainable.”