Historic Building Construction

Evaluation of Structural Compatibility of Rooftop Extension in Historic Buildings

Abstract

This essay is an evaluation of the rooftop extension structure in historic buildings to understand method of attachment of new technologies to historical buildings, it is important to find a way where old and new structure of the built environment can be represented in the future in a balanced way. Through the relationship between historic buildings and contemporary structure has always been a tension in the historic preservation field. In addition, historic buildings need to be extended regarding to their new function.

Moreover, reliability assessment of existing buildings is in many aspects different from that taken in designing the structure of a

Introduction

Many of historic buildings have been added to over the years around the world. There are different reasons for adding new additions to historical building such as to make the building more functional, to improve the economic viability of the building, to change building system and technology and so on. The new additions should be compatible with the materials and other character-defining elements of the historic building.

In some cases, there is different between rooftop additions and historical building. In these cases, new additions can be removed or to make the exterior more compatible with the character of the historic building (Grimmer and Weeks, 2010) to determine if an existing additions are significant or not. In addition, the roofline is important because it should be protecting the character and appearance of the existing

Compatibility is achieved thorough application of the following design principles such as Structure, Massing, Materials, Roof Shapes, Details and Ornamentation, and Reversibility (Grimmer and Weeks, 2010). Mentioned information should be considered in the design of rooftop extension that would be discussed in this article.

It is significant to realize of the design principles of historic buildings for designing a compatible building. Compatibility should also involve analysis of how these design principles are used in the neighborhood and how they can be interpreted using today's materials and construction techniques.

In some cases, compatibility is not that much considered especially for the rooftop extensions due to building character, function, history and neighborhood. These issues should be considered in the design of new rooftop extension for creating the suitable and useful addition to historical buildings. Then, new rooftop structure of two historical buildings are analyzed which discuss the success of these new rooftop vertical annex. Two historic building with new rooftop extension like, Aldwych House and 1010 building, are chosen as case studies.

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