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PRESERVATION TERMS GLOSSARY Adaptive Use: The reuse of a building or structure, usually for a purpose different from the original. 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, or a house now used as a funeral parlor. Architectural Review Boards: These groups, usually locally appointed or elected, are charged with judging whether an owner's proposed changes to his or her property are acceptable under written or implied guidelines for what is "appropriate" in the particular community or historic district. Certified Local Governments: Refers to a local government, certified or approved by the State Historic Preservation Office (SHPO), which has an appointed commission to oversee the survey and inventory of historic resources, to review areas for historically significant structures, and to develop and maintain community planning and education programs. Used only when the article uses this terminology. Cultural Landscapes: A geographic area, including both cultural and natural resources and the wildlife or domestic animals therein, associated with a historic event, activity, or person or exhibiting other cultural or aesthetic values." There are four general types of cultural landscapes, not mutually exclusive: historic sites, historic designed landscapes, historic vernacular landscapes, and ethnographic landscapes. Historic Site: A landscape significant for its association with a historic event, activity, or person. Examples include battlefields and president's house properties. Historic Designed Landscape: Alandscape that was consciously designed or laid out by a landscape architect, master gardener, architect, or horticulturist according to design principles, or an amateur gardener working in a recognized style or tradition. The landscape may be associated with a significant person(s), trend, or event in landscape architecture; or illustrate an important development in the theory and practice of landscape architecture. Aesthetic values play a significant role in designed landscapes. Examples include parks, campuses, and estates. Historic Vernacular Landscape: A landscape that evolved through use by the people whose activities or occupancy shaped that landscape. Through social or cultural attitudes ofan individual, family or a community, the landscape reflects the physical, biological, and cultural character of those everyday lives. Function plays a significant role in vernacular landscapes. They can be a single property such as a farm or a collection of properties such as a district of historic farms along a river valley. Examples include rural villages, industrial complexes, and agricultural landscapes. Ethnographic Landscape: A landscape containing a variety of natural and cultural resources that associated people define as heritage resources. Examples are contemporary settlements, religious sacred sites and massive geological structures. Small plant communities, animals, subsistence and ceremonial grounds are often components. Cultural Resource Management: Administration or protection of a cultural resource, or "a building, structure, district, site, or object that is significant in . . . history, architecture, archaeology, or culture" (Bill Murtagh, Keeping Time 214). Cultural Resource Surveys: Inventories of sites, buildings, structures, or objects deemed to have local, regional, national, or international cultural significance. The purpose of such surveys is to have a record of what is significant in order to protect such resources from development or encroachment or to document the current appearance or condition for the record. Often such surveys lead to the nomination of properties to historic registers. These were formerly referred to as Historic Sites Surveys. Demolition by Neglect: Allowing a building to fall into such a state of disrepair that it becomes necessary or desirable to demolish it. Property owners have been accused of permitting demolition by neglect on purpose, in order to save rehabilitation costs. Design Criteria: Standards of appropriateness or compatibility of building design within a community or historic district. Often in the form of a handbook, design criteria (also called design guidelines) usually contain drawings accompanying "do's and don't's" for the property owner. In some situations an Architectural Review Board or similar group has authority to administer the design criteria. 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 Context: A unit created for planning purposes that groups information about historic properties based on a shared theme, specific time period and geographical area. Historic Districts: Used only when referring to a neighborhood or region designated by national, state, or local officials as a historic district. Historic Integrity: The retention of sufficient aspects of location, design, setting, workmanship, materials, feeling or association for a property to convey its historic significance. Historic Landmarks: Used only when referring to a site designated by national, state, or local officials as a historic landmark. Primarily used to refer to National Historic Landmarks. Historic Structure Reports: An HSR is an analysis of a building's structural condition, involving written and photographic or photogrammetric evidence. The purpose of an HSR is usually to provide a record of a building's condition before beginning restoration or renovation of the building. Used only when article uses this terminology. Infill: The use of vacant land and property within a built-up area for further construction or development, especially as part of a neighborhood preservation or limited growth program. Integrity: The authenticity of a property's historic identity, evidenced by the survival of physical characteristics that existed during the property's historic or prehistoric period. National Historic Landmark: Nationally significant historic places designated by the Secretary of the Interior because they possess exceptional value or quality in illustrating or interpreting the heritage of the United States. (Authorized by the Historic Sites Act of 1935). (NPS) National Register of Historic Places: The official list of the Nation's historic places worthy of preservation and includes districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects that are significant in American history, architecture, archeology, engineering, and culture. Authorized by the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, the National Park Service's National Register of Historic Places is part of a national program to coordinate and support public and private efforts to identify, evaluate, and protect America's historic and archeological resources. Preserve:To maintain a structure's existing form through careful maintenance and repair. Reconstruct: To re-create an historic building that has been damaged or destroyed; to erect a new structure resembling the old using historical, archaeological, architectural documents. Rehabilitate: To repair a structure and make it usable again while preserving those portions or features of the property that are historically and culturally significant. For example, rehabilitation might include an updated kitchen while retaining the historic stairwell and fireplaces. Most common approach for private houses. Remodel: To change a building without regard to its distinctive features or style. Often involves changing the appearance of a structure by removing or covering original details and substituting new materials and forms. Renovate: To repair a structure and make it usable again, without attempting to restore its historic appearance or duplicate original construction methods or material. Restore: To return a building to its form and condition as represented by a specified period of time using materials that are as similar as possible to the original materials. Revolving Funds: Preservation revolving fund is a pool of capital created and reserved for historic preservation, with the condition that the money will be returned to the fund to be reused for similar activities. It can be an effective tool to address blighted neighborhoods or run-down properties in your community, revitalize a historic district or commercial area, or demonstrate the economic and social benefits of historic preservation. Stabilize: To protect a building from deterioration by making it structurally secure, while maintaining its current form.
For additional information about any of the above definitions, please visit the following websites from which these terms were compiled:
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