|
GLOSSARY OF TERMS
Submit for inclusion HERE
Many of our members are new to historic preservation and may be unfamiliar with the language and terms of this field. We hope you will find this useful. If you still have questions, please don't hesitate to call or email SOHO.
Adaptive Re-Use
The method of preservation where a building retains its signature visual elements, but the structure is used for a purpose other than originally intended. The term implies that certain structural or design changes have been made to the building in order for it to function in its new use. Examples might include a factory building now used for loft apartments.
CEQA (California Environmental Quality Act)
A statute that requires state and local agencies to identify the significant environmental impacts of their actions and to avoid or mitigate those impacts, if feasible.
Character-defining/distinctive feature
Features particular to a historic structure that distinguish and/or typify its character in terms of its original visual and structural design (and engineering) and in terms of its historic function or use.
DPR form
Primary Record and Building, Structure and Object form.
Easement
Legal protection (recorded in a property deed) for distinguishing features of the interior or exterior of a property or in the space surrounding a property because such features are deemed important to be preserved. For example, a new property owner may be prevented from making changes or additions to a building, structure, or landscape by an easement in the property deed itself. These are sometimes specified as preservation easements or conservation easements.
Historic District
A defined geographical area which may be as small as a few contiguous buildings or as large as an entire neighborhood, central business district, or community, within which historic properties associated with a particular time or theme in a community's history predominate. Often the collective significance of the district may be greater than that of any one building or archaeological site. As a planning tool, historic district designation is often used to ensure the preservation of historic properties within the defined boundary or to encourage reinvestment of the buildings.
Historic Fabric
Any important components of the building such as doors and windows as well as the apparently mundane and hidden areas that are original to the building.
- Formless materials such as rubble or flint wall construction;
- Structure within voids such as floor joists and roof timbers;
- Redundant parts of a building such as unused door openings or machinery.
Historic Integrity (per National Register criteria)
The authenticity of a property's historic identity, evidenced by the survival of physical characteristics that existed during the property's period of significance. Including integrity of location, design, setting, materials, workmanship, feeling, and association. The ability of a resource to convey its historical significance.
Historic Registers
Refers to any local, state, national, or international list of significant sites, districts, buildings, or objects.
Historic Significance (per National Register criteria)
The importance of a property to the history, architecture, archaeology, engineering, or culture of a community, state, or nation. Historic significance is achieved in meeting one or more of the following criteria:
- Association with events that have made a significant contribution to the broad patterns of our history;
- Association with the lives of persons significant in our past;
- Embodiment of the distinctive characteristics of a type, period, or method of construction or that represent the work of a master, or that possess high artistic values, or that represent a significant and distinguishable entity whose components may lack individual distinction; or
- Yielded, or potential to yield, information important in prehistory or history.
HSR (Historic Structures Report)
Comprehensive reference documents providing long-term preservation guidance for historic property. Survey work involves both documentary research and in depth on-site inspection. Reports typically include narratives on the property's history and construction; descriptions and photographs showing its original appearance and current conditions; original paint colors; materials conservation analysis; and other specifications for restoration work.
Mills Act
A California state law allowing cities to enter into agreements with the owners of historic structures. Such agreements require a reduction of property taxes in exchange for the continued preservation of the property. Property taxes are recalculated using a formula in the Mills Act and Revenue and Taxation Code.
National Historic Landmark
National Historic Landmarks "possess exceptional value or quality in illustrating and interpreting the heritage of the United States." This is a national designation and only a small fraction of all sites listed in the National Register of Historic Places bear this designation.
Reconstruction
The recreation of a historic building or feature that has been demolished or destroyed based on documentation or research. The product resembles its historic predecessor, but is not historic.
Rehabilitation
The process of returning a property to a state of utility, through repair or alteration, which makes possible an efficient contemporary use while preserving those portions and features of the property which are significant to its historic, architectural, and cultural values.
Renovation
Modernization of an old or historic building or structure that may produce inappropriate alterations or eliminate important features and details of Historic Places.
Restoration
The act of returning a historic property as closely as possible to its exact appearance at a particular point in time, based on careful research. This often involves removing modern systems, technological improvements and additions.
Secretary of the Interior's Standards for Rehabilitation
A broad set of guidelines for the rehabilitation of historic properties designated to encourage work which is in keeping with the historic character of the building and which does not do damage to the building's historic fabric.
Sympathetic Additions
Additions to structures, which follow or complement the architectural style or scale of the original building.
|
PRESERVATION RESOURCES
|
