Preservation projects do not win national awards by playing it safe. This year’s Richard H. Driehaus Foundation National Preservation Award winners tackled a working civic building in San Diego, an industrial riverfront site in Buffalo, and a landmark court building in Salem, Oregon. For mason contractors, the through line is clear: keep historic materials in place, solve the technical problems, and leave the next generation a building that still performs.
In San Diego, the county preserved its 1938 historic administration center while keeping the 315,000-square-foot building occupied. The $139 million effort stretched across seven years and 23 phases, with much of the hands-on work happening overnight. Among the standout scope items was restoration of cracking ceramic mosaic tile on two rooftop domes, along with preservation of key interior finishes like terrazzo floors, marble walls, and restored steel windows that remain operable.
In Buffalo, a once-abandoned collection of concrete grain silos and vacant brick warehouses along the Buffalo River was redeveloped into American Lofts at Silo City. The $70 million-plus transformation kept the site’s industrial character front and center, including exposed brick and glazed block walls, and repurposed original artifacts as part of the final experience.
In Salem, Oregon’s Supreme Court Building posed a seismic challenge common to many historic structures. A conventional retrofit for the unreinforced masonry building would have required major demolition and risked damaging marble wainscoting, plaster ornamentation, and other finishes. Instead, the team chose base isolation, building a new foundation system that allows the structure to move laterally up to 24 inches during an earthquake, while also upgrading building systems and completing a restoration of historic interior materials.
Read the full, original article from National Trust for Historic Preservation here.