Historic properties can be made more sustainable, energy-efficient, and resilient, improving their performance and use while also preserving their historic character. This not only improves their livability, but also helps ensure their long-term preservation as well.
The National Park Service (NPS) has been providing guidance and technical preservation information on these issues in relation to the Secretary of the Interior's Standards for the Treatment of Historic Properties for decades since producing one of its first Preservation Briefs on the subject of energy efficiency in 1978.
The National Park Service Technical Preservation Services section announces that current guidance and information can now be found on a new website on the sustainability, energy efficiency, and resilience of historic properties.
For further exploration of these topics, please visit: Sustainability, Energy Efficiency, Resilience & Historic Buildings - Technical Preservation Services (U.S. National Park Service) (nps.gov)
In addition, new guidance to the resilience of historic properties to natural disasters has been issued. This guidance has been adapted from the "Resilience to Natural Hazards" section in The Secretary of the Interior's Standards for the Treatment of Historic Properties with Guidelines for Preserving, Rehabilitating, Restoring, and Reconstructing Historic Buildings (2017) and from The Guidelines on Flood Adaptation for Rehabilitating Historic Buildings (2021).
To access this new guidance, please visit: Resilience to Natural Hazards and Historic Buildings - Technical Preservation Services (U.S. National Park Service) (nps.gov)
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Robert Burns, AIA
Historic Resources Committee Advisory Group
Richmond, VA
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