Bob Stevens will join Tad Cooke, New Moran, Inc. as a panelist at the VBSR’s 25th Annual Spring Conference on May 13th. Bob will address the challenges faced during the Brooks House renovation and the available tools used to complete the project.
Date: Wednesday May 13th, 2015
Time: 7:30 AM – 5:30 PM
Location: University of Vermont’s Davis Center
Stevens & Associates will collaborate with Bread Loaf Corporation to present “The Resiliency of Brooks House” at ACX15 – Vermont’s Architecture & Construction Expo on Thursday May 21st.
Expo Dates: May 20th & 21st, 2015
Location: Hilton Burlington Hotel & Conference Center
VBSR member Stevens & Associates, P.C. is co-sponsoring the VBSR Networking Get-Together event.
Date: Wednesday Apr 15th, 2015
Time: 5:30 PM – 7:30 PM
Location: Brooks House Atrium
Address: 120-136 Main St Brattleboro, Vermont
Cost: Free and open to the public
Stevens & Associates Wins Award For The Historic Brooks House
BRATTLEBORO, VT, March 2015 — Stevens & Associates, P.C. received an award in this year’s Engineering Excellence Awards Competition by the American Council of Engineering Companies (ACEC) of Vermont. The Awards recognize outstanding examples of engineering excellence in projects recently completed within Vermont. The architectural design and engineering firm received the competition’s highest honors, the Grand Prize Award, for its work in renovating and rehabilitating the historic Brooks House located in downtown Brattleboro. Stevens & Associates accepts this award and acknowledges Hardy Structural Engineering, LLC of Colchester, VT for their collaborative structural engineering effort on this project.
After a devastating fire in 2011, the Brooks House was in need of significant structural and architectural design. Bob Stevens, founder and principal of Stevens & Associates partnered with several members of the community to develop a plan which would enhance the building and the economic growth of Brattleboro. The building was reframed from the basement to the tower in order to address years of settlement and accommodate the new layout. In addition, the project required a complex financing package of historic and new market tax credits, public and private loans, and private investments.
The $24 million renovation was completed in 2014. This endeavor has rebuilt a cornerstone of downtown Brattleboro offering the community academic space for 2 colleges and a progressive K-8 independent school, 23 residential units, restaurants, retail shops, and a spacious atrium showcasing local artistic talent. Stevens & Associates has won similar awards for projects in the past, including the Dot’s Restaurant in Wilmington, Brattleboro Transportation Center, the Wilder Building renovation, and the renovation of its own offices in the Cutler Block in downtown Brattleboro.
A few weeks ago, Chronicle reporter Ted Reinstein interviewed Bob Stevens to discuss The Brooks House for a segment called Main Streets and Back Roads: Brattleboro, Vermont. This piece features the Chelsea Royal Diner, the Brattleboro Ski Jump, and provides a glimpse at what is currently happening at Rudyard Kipling’s old home. The segment airs tonight on WCVB at 7:30.
Here are the links if you missed it:
Brooks House:
1.) http://www.wcvb.com/chronicle/rescued-a-grande-dame/31486692
Duo Restaurant:
2.) http://www.wcvb.com/chronicle/brattleboro-native-surprised-to-be-back/31486934
Archer Mayor:
3.) http://www.wcvb.com/chronicle/vermont-writers-muse/31486978
NY Taxi Cab in VT:
4.) http://www.wcvb.com/chronicle/anyone-call-a-cab-from-new-york/31487736
Back in December we attended the Vermont Development Conference in Burlington, VT to see what else is going on in the great state of Vermont. Included at the conference were lots of great presenters discussing development strategy, financing packages, key stakeholders, design, and successful projects around the state. And one of those projects was the Brooks House presented by Bob Stevens. A big thanks to White + Burke for putting it on. Here’s one of a few videos from the key speakers:
Stevens & Associates’ latest project, an arts barn at Hilltop Montessori School, is complete.
The school approached us wanting arts space, a gymnasium, and a multi-use function space. There was an old barn on the property that was a candidate for these needs. After looking at various options, the design team and client decided to save about half the barn with a gut renovation and add on to increase the square footage.
The result is a building that saves the best features of the historic barn and offers highly functional space for the school. Barn doors pay homage to the original use of the building, and clean, bright finishes inside connect the space with the rest of the school.
Classrooms are in use for music and art classes, and the gymnasium will be a great addition for play time in the winter months. A function space (and theater) just off the gymnasium takes advantage of the spectacular views on the site, and opens onto the gymasium for bigger events.
Stevens & Associates is delighted to announce the grand opening of the Brooks House, a historic restoration and adaptive reuse project that has been 3 years in the making.
The building, a cornerstone of downtown Brattleboro, burned in 2011. A team of investors, including Stevens & Associates founder Bob Stevens, came together to renovate the building to the tune of $24 million. The project included a gut rehab of the building, with apartments on the top floors, space for Community College of Vermont and Vermont Technical College, office space for Oak Meadow (a homeschooling curriculum company), and retail spaces on the ground level. The energy efficiency of the building was significantly upgraded with added insulation, new heating and lighting systems, and a new air-conditioning system. Historic features were preserved even as 21st-century features were added to the building.
In the end, Stevens & Associates and the investment group returned some of the grandeur to a building that was once the most impressive hotel on the East Coast. The lights are once again on, and people are once again flowing through the building.
What to do with an underused parking garage in Atlanta? If you’re a student at SCAD (the Savannah College of Art and Design), you turn it into a village of three, 135-square-foot microhomes called SCADpads, then have students, faculty, and guests live in them.
Like a lot of design school projects, the SCADpads are less about practicality and more about design concepts and exploring what’s possible. The pads themselves represent three regions – North America, Asia, and Europe – and are bright and full of funky details. There are plenty of high-end touches, including a Miehl induction cooktop, responsive windows, and smart-phone controlled systems.
There is, however, a kernel of practicality in the idea of a village of microhomes with shared outdoor spaces and a community garden. Take an underutilized space (a parking garage, a vacant lot, an abandoned warehouse) and put small but complete housing units in it. Use those to house students, singles, temporary workers, or the homeless. Bring life and vitality to otherwise dead urban zones, and potentially lower the crime rate (more vibrant streetscapes tend to experience less crime for the simple reason that there are more people around and watching). There’s also potential here for disaster relief housing using space (parking spaces) that isn’t otherwise being used.
To make this viable on a larger scale, however, a few things would probably have to change. There’s not a lot of room in the SCADpads for the occupants’ personalities to shine through. They have little control over the aesthetics of their spaces, and that could be a problem. The pads would need to be portable, too, if they were going to be used as temporary or disaster relief housing. Finally, as with most design school prototype projects, the costs of the pad would need to be brought down. (No more Miehle stovetops!)
As our designer Timberly Hund (who graduated from SCAD) noted, “It’s a great example of adaptive reuse and affordable living and tiny house living. It will be interesting to see how students use the outdoor space, but I imagine it will become a playground!”
We do a lot of adaptive reuse projects here at Stevens & Associates, but most of them involve renovations to historic buildings. This was a good reminder that eventually our modern infrastructure (parking garages) will need the adaptive reuse treatment as well, and will present an opportunity to create vibrant downtown microvillages with plenty of chances for community creation.
We’re rounding up our Wetlands series with the final four functions of a wetland. It’s important to remember that wetlands affect all development projects, not just rural development. Wetland areas exist in downtowns, too, or adjacent to them. They also protect our downtowns from damage during storm and flood events.
Exemplary Natural Community: Essentially, this is a category for super-special wetlands that contain rare habitats or species. Dwarf shrub bogs, alpine peatland, and red maple-black gum swamp are some types of these exemplary wetlands. Their function is preservation of species and wetland ecology.
Education and Research: Wetlands are amazing places to learn about and study ecological systems, in part because they are discrete systems with boundaries. Unlike forests, which can range for hundreds or thousands of miles and share fuzzy borders with other ecosystems, wetland species cannot survive outside the specific conditions of a wetland. So scientists can learn a lot about ecosystem interconnectivity.
Erosion Control: Wetlands along streams, rivers, lakes, and ocean shorelines help prevent the loss of soil to erosion during storms and floods. This, in turn, helps prevent damage to human settlements
during those same events. During a hurricane, for example, the roots of wetland plants will hold on to soil even as fast-moving water rushes over it, preventing loss of land and silt damage farther downstream.
Surface and Ground Water Protection: Wetlands act as gigantic sponges for pollutants, soaking them up and detoxifying our water supplies. This is true for sediments, chemicals, and excess nutrients (nitrogen and phosphorous). This keeps our water clean and prevents problems elsewhere in the ecosystem.
Photos: Vermont Wetlands Program
We’ve been talking about wetlands for the last couple of weeks, and continue this week with the next three functions and values defined by the Vermont Wetlands Program
Open Space and Aesthetics: In Vermont, we very much appreciate the value beautiful, open spaces bring to the state. They are a major tourist draw, and tourism is a major element of the Vermont economy. Total tourist spending in the state totals $2.2 billion and generates 23% of employment in the state. In parts of the state with more development, the open space provided by wetlands is more valuable.
Storm and Flood Water Storage: In the wake of Hurricane Irene, we may consider the flood-mitigating effects of wetlands to be their most important asset. During snow melt, rain storms, or hurricanes, wetlands can temporarily store excess water, keeping it from flooding developed land or lessening the severity of a flood. After the storm, the wetlands slowly release the stored water, lessening the likelihood of downstream flooding.
Endangered and Rare Species: According to the Vermont Wetlands Program, up to 43% of the nation’s endangered and threatened species rely on wetlands in some way for survival. These species are dwindling, largely because of human development. Without fully understanding how these species interact with each other and what they contribute to the ecology of a place, we cannot understand what might be lost with their extinction.
Photos:
Top: Map Turtle, Wikimedia Commons User Dger, CC license
Bottom: Wetland during/after a rain event, Vermont Wetlands Program
We spend a lot of time in this office figuring out how to work around and protect wetlands during construction projects, for good reason: wetlands provide a host of services that are valuable to both animals and humans.
The Vermont Wetlands Program recognizes 10 functions and values for wetlands. This blog looks at the first three: Wildlife Habitat, Fish Habitat, and Recreation and Economics.
Wildlife Habitat: Wetlands provide habitat (a place to live and food to eat) for many species of plants and animals. According to the Vermont Wetlands Program, wetlands have a very high rate of plant productivity, meaning they are very good at turning energy from the sun into food for animals to eat. These plants also provide good hiding spots for many animals, especially migratory birds. Why is all of this important? We as humans depend on a robust ecosystem to provide the resources we need to survive. Without it, our needs – from clean air and water to timber and food – would not be met.
Fish Habitat: In addition to plants, birds, and other animals living in the wetlands, fish live and breed there. The Northern Pike spawns in wetlands off Lake Champlain, for example; a healthy population of these fish is required for commercial and recreational fishing to continue. Not all wetlands provide fish habitat, but the ones that do are linked to our ability to continue to catch and eat fish.
Recreation and Economics: Wetlands are not only beautiful, they are full of species that people like to hunt, catch, and photograph. According to the Vermont Wetlands Program, the photography of wetland-dependent bird species entire almost 50 million people to spend $10 billion annually, nationwide. And waterfowl hunters spend over $600 million annually nationwide. That’s big business, especially in a tourism-dependent state like Vermont. Wetlands also provide timber, fish and shellfish, blueberries, cranberries, and wild rice (not all of these are harvested in Vermont, of course).
(Photos: US Fish and Wildlife Service)
One of the first things we do when we start designing a site (whether for a building, parking lot, or green space) is determine if there are wetlands on the property. If we think there might be, we hire a wetlands consultant to tell us exactly where the wetlands are and what kind they are.
Why? Well, it’s the law. But we’re doing more than just meeting a legal requirement. We’re trying to ensure that the wetlands in our state are preserved so they can continue serving valuable functions for wildlife and humans.
The Vermont Wetlands Program recognizes 10 functions and values for wetlands:
Wildlife Habitat
Fish Habitat
Recreation and Economics
Open Space and Aesthetics
Storm and Flood Water Storage
Endangered and Rare Species
Exemplary Communities
Education and Research
Erosion Control
Water Quality Protection
We will tackle each of these functions over the next several weeks, but the short version is this: wetlands are valuable not only in ecological terms, but also in economic terms. They save our buildings and communities from flood damage and mitigate the flood damage we do get. They filter water before it gets to our rivers and wells. They provide habitat for animals and plants, and draw tourists to the state.
So how can you tell if you have a wetland on your property? The Wildlife Program has a great guide for landowners. You want to look for three things: water, wetland plants, and wetland soil. If there’s a wet, marshy spot or a pond or just a spot where trees and plants often fall over, you might have a wetland. If there are cattails, sedges, or other wetland plants, or if trees have shallow roots, you might have a wetland. If you dig a hole and it fills with water, or if the soil is especially dark or streaked with red, or smells like rotten eggs, you might have a wetland.
The only way to know for sure, though, is to contact a wetland scientist.
When the Windham Foundation approached Stevens & Associates about coming up with concepts for redeveloping the Retreat Farm property out on Route 30, we knew if would be a fun project. At this stage of design, which you could call the “dream” stage, there are few limits to what you can explore. We keep budgets in mind, but we also encourage our clients to dream big. Sometimes, a design that seems impossibly expensive will come to fruition through creativity and innovation.
On to the details: for the Windham Foundation, we looked at repurposing existing farm buildings to create a retail and manufacturing cluster to add to Grafton Village Cheese’s existing facility. We looked at adding parking to the site and making it easier for pedestrians to enter and explore the site and access the Retreat Trails toward the back of the property.
Most exciting for us is the possibility of turning Route 30 into a boulevard, with a bike and walking path separated from the road by a planted strip. A planted strip would also separate the traffic lanes. Both of these things lead to better pedestrian and cyclist safety, since they visually cue drivers to slow down and watch for traffic. Such a boulevard could become a grand entrance to Brattleboro from Route 30.
It’s important to note that this is just a first pass at a conceptual design, and there is a lot of hard work before any of it would become reality. Further study will tell us where the wetlands are on the property and what effect development would have on them. It will also tell us if there are archaeological resources that need to be protected, and how best to control stormwater. We will look more closely at the buildings and what it would take to renovate them and adapt them to new uses. And then we will look at how much all of these ideas will cost.
Smart Growth American and the National Complete Streets Coalition have issued a report, entitled “Dangerous By Design 2014,” looking at the causes and frequency of pedestrian deaths and injuries on the nation’s roadways. It’s worth a look, especially in light of recent pedestrian accidents in the Brattleboro area.
Many of the hallmarks of “dangerous design” are present in our region, including state highways and thoroughfares with pedestrians and cyclists sharing roads designed for high vehicle speeds. (Think Route 9 between Marlboro and Brattleboro, or Route 30 coming into town.)
There’s a ton of data in the report, but what struck us was a small case study about West Jefferson, North Carolina. Apparently, the main street of the town is also a state highway, which had been designed for large trucks and high vehicle speeds.
Working with the state, the town eliminated traffic signals and replaced them with four-way stop signs, painted high-visibility crosswalks, increased on-street parking, and extending curbs to lessen the length of pedestrian crossings. Traffic slowed and people started walking again.
Within a few years, new stores opened up in previously vacant storefronts (dropping vacancies from 33 to 5). The downtown renewal prompted $500,000 in renovations and investment, the opening of 10 new businesses , creation of 55 new jobs, and a 19% increase in tourist visits.
The point is this: pedestrian safety is good for business, good for downtowns, good for the grand list, good for just about everyone and everything. There are several plans for the Brattleboro area that incorporate these measures; let’s work to get them built.
(Photos from visitwestjefferson.org)
We’d like to welcome Ham Hodgman to the team here at Stevens & Associates. Ham worked for us quite some time ago, and then moved away down South. But now he’s back, bringing his civil engineering expertise with him.
To quote his resume:
“Hamilton (Ham) Hodgman has worked as a civil engineer in Vermont, North Carolina, and South Carolina for over a decade. His work has included schematic design, design development, state and local permitting, and construction phases for residential and commercial construction. He is well-versed in public presentations and client relations.
In addition to his civil engineering and design work, Ham has extensive experience providing construction services, including technical review, geotechnical engineering, inspections, and materials testing on projects for industrial, institutional, and commercial facilities clients.”
While the greenest building may be the one that’s never built, the next greenest may be the historic one that’s being rehabbed.
A couple of years ago, the National Trust for Historic Preservation released a study quantifying the environmental benefits of rehabilitating old buildings instead of construction new ones. The study concluded that it can take “between 10 and 80 years for a new, energy-efficient building to overcome, through more efficient operations, the negative climate change impacts that were created during the construction process.”
Renovation of historic buildings has environmental costs, too—the materials used in renovation take energy to make and put in the building. But the environmental costs are 4%-46% less than those incurred by new construction.
The study offers some caveats. Renovation needs to improve the energy performance of the building to pay off, and you need to be careful about the types of materials you use. Turning warehouses into apartments, for example, requires many new materials and may not offer any environmental benefits over building new.
Making an older building meet the demands of the twenty-first century isn’t a simple process. In the Brooks House, for example, we had to add framing to increase the available space for insulation. Many of the windows were replaced, and others (the ones that were especially important historically) were rehabilitated to make them more energy efficient.
Many of the features of historic buildings are inherently energy-efficient. Large, operable windows allow daylighting and ventilation, meaning you can turn lights and air-conditioning off more often. Massive brick walls take a long time to heat up and cool down, which means that interior spaces stay comfortable longer without air conditioning or heat.
Many historic buildings are located in neighborhoods and downtowns that were built before the automobile was invented. Historic buildings make up Main Street, the icon of mixed-use walkability in this country. Kaid Benfield noted recently that “Main Street is a terrific model worth preserving and emulating…It has a human scale, neither skyscrapers nor sprawl, but something in between.”
Want to read what we’ve been reading? Read on…
“In Cape Town, Urban Design Reduces Violence”
From the American Society of Landscape Architects comes a blog entry about an urban design project in Cape Town, South Africa, that has reduced murders (an insight into overall violence) in one of the city’s townships by 22% overall. How? A group of planners, landscape architects, and architects created four “safe nodes” throughout the township. These nodes provide well-lit pedestrian malls, wide walkways, and other elements that promote safe walking routes. New public facilities, including community buildings, parks, and a sports complex provide spaces for community events, get-togethers, and play.
“Search for Ash Borers Turns Up Termites in Vermont”
Termites in Vermont? Well, maybe. WCAX reports that traps set for invasive ash borers have found one infestation of subterranean termites near the town of Wells.
“Do We Need Affordable Housing or Affordable Living?”
Housing is getting more expensive, here in Brattleboro and everywhere else. Blogger Dan Zack at Better! Cities and Town offers the opinion that housing itself is only part of the problem, and argues that we should be focused not on affordable housing alone, but on affordable living. He breaks the issue down into two parts, talking first about the combined cost of housing and transportation, which is approaching roughly 50% of average household income. This is largely because to get to cheaper housing, you need to go further away from the city, where the jobs are, making commutes longer and transportation costs higher.
There’s a tool from the Center for Neighborhood Technology called the Housing + Transportation Affordability Index. There’s not enough data for Brattleboro specifically, but the surrounding towns all hit that 50% mark or higher for costs. We live in a rural area, and most people drive for work, groceries, and other things.
The second part of Zack’s article talks about the size of living spaces. He points out that smaller living spaces cost less, and that an investment in public spaces would make smaller private spaces more palatable.
(Capetown Photos found here.)
Next month, we are going to a walk-through of 14 Mill Street in Bellows Falls. The Town is looking for someone to redevelop two buildings on the site, which is down a back street downtown. A developer would enter into a partnership with the Town, which would assist with grant funding and redevelopment, then sell the property to the developer for $1. So what does a developer consider in a situation like this? How do you decide to save a building?
First you look at the building itself. Will the building and its spaces work for your proposed use? Does it have enough parking or access for your needs? What are the floor-to-floor heights? How big are the rooms? What condition is the building in? Is it structurally sound?
The 14 Mill Street property has some lovely details, including brick work and large windows. Most of it is likely still sound, structurally, but some has deteriorated and is no longer safe. The building would not likely be suitable for retail purposes, since it has no street presence on the main square of the village, and vehicular access is a little tricky.
Next you think about the financing for the project. What sources of funding are available to you? Does the project qualify for tax credits? What about grants and loans? What can you count on for project “hard” costs (materials and construction expenses)? What about “soft” costs (designers, lawyers, etc.)? What is the market like in the area, and what can you get for rents?
Although you would need a lot more detail on the building to know for sure, from first glance, we can tell that 14 Mill Street is in a New Market Tax Credit zone and is likely eligible for Historic Preservation Tax Credits. It may also be eligible for a Community Block Development Grant for Slums and Blight Development. You can assume somewhere around $200/ft2 for hard costs and another $50 or $60/ft2 for soft costs. We have a rough idea of square footage from previous work on the building, which means that we can guess that you would need to get $25/ft2 in rent to support those redevelopment costs if you didn’t have subsidies and tax credits. To make the project viable, you need to get the rental figure down to what the market will bear, somewhere in the $10-$12/ft2 range.
(Let’s take a minute here to remind ourselves that this is ALL guesswork, and that a full feasibility study would be required to make any of these numbers even close to accurate. We’d also like to note that we will be taking a deeper look at each of these funding sources in the future.)
So what’s the next step? A developer would go back after a walk-through and try to firm up the numbers above and analyze the building and its location. A call to an architect might be in order (that’s why we go to the walk-through) to talk about what’s needed for the building, and a rough budget for the project needs to be developed. Then the developer would submit a proposal, with budgets and maybe even rough design sketches, to the Town. If they are awarded the building, they move on to a more complete look at the feasibility of the project, called a “feasibility study.” And then to design and construction.
We most often think of adaptive reuse in terms of restoration of buildings, but the term applies to landscapes and other structures, too. The High Line in Manhattan repurposed an elevated rail track along 10th Avenue to make a park and walking trail through downtown.The project was completed in phases; the first segment opened in 2009, the second in 2011. A third section has been proposed. Before the High Line could be planted, the railroad tracks and support structures had to be renovated, their lead paint removed, and their aging structures properly bolstered.The landscape, designed by James Corner Field Operations and Diller Scofidio + Renfro, echoes the overgrown railroad tracks one can spot throughout the country. Wildflowers and grasses are interspersed between planks and walking paths. Trees provide color and shade, as well as bird habitat, both needed in urban environments.The width of the walking paths varies along the High Line, narrow walking areas opening onto wider gathering and resting spots. In this way, it is much like an urban street that opens onto a plaza, where you might be able to eat at an outdoor café. (Indeed, there are food vendors along the path.)Unlike other parks in New York, High Line does not try to separate visitors from the city, or necessarily provide a respite. It is in the heart of the city (it even runs right through some buildings), and allows access to urban sights and sounds.The High Line presents one answer for what to do with our country’s (and our region’s) aging infrastructure.
Traveling the back roads of northern New England, it’s not uncommon to find long-abandoned carriage roads taken over by the wildflowers and forests. What if we did that intentionally on the unused railroad track the runs so often through the back sides of our towns and villages?
In Brattleboro, we are faced with aging bridges into New Hampshire. Among the many discussions about those bridges and what should happen to them, perhaps we should consider using a High Line approach on the old bridges once they are replaced, allowing better pedestrian access to Mount Wantastiquet and the Connecticut River.
(Photos are from the Friends of the High Line site.)
“Adaptive reuse refers to the process of reusing an old site or building for a purpose other than that which it was built or designed for,” according to The American Institute of Architects. In other words, it’s keeping the shell of an old building and redesigning the inside to meet changing needs. When adapting downtown buildings, creating mixed-use spaces is common, with retail and office space on bottom floors and residential space up top.
Very often, adaptive reuse projects include historic preservation requirements that limit what can be changed in the building. These requirements, the Secretary of the Interior’s Standards for Rehabilitation, are tied to the historic preservation tax credits used to finance many projects. The standards state that, “A property shall be used for its historic purpose or be placed in a new use that requires minimal change to the defining characteristics of the building and its site and environment.”
Opinions vary on what makes something a “defining characteristic,” which means pursuing an adaptive reuse project can involve a little bit of negotiation between an owner, architect, historic consultant, and the National Park Service (which oversees the tax credits). Generally, things that can’t be changed include exterior details (which can be repaired or replaced with exact replicas) and interior details, such as tin ceilings, that mark the building as belonging to a particular time and place and are worth preserving.
At one of our projects, the Brooks House in Brattleboro, Vermont, many of the interior “defining characteristics” of the 1870s hotel had been removed during a renovation in the 1970s that turned it into apartments; most of the remaining interior elements were destroyed in a 2011 fire. The exterior, however, remained largely intact.
The owners of the building wanted to improve the access to the retail spaces on the first floor of the building, make room for a community college and offices on the second floor, and enlarge the apartments on the third and fourth floors. To accommodate these new uses in the building, we needed to completely remove most of the interior partition walls and construct an addition on the rear of the building. The exterior needed to be preserved to meet historic preservation requirements, and the addition needed to complement, not compete with, the existing building.
When the building is complete, it will have another new life, and will continue to contribute to the vibrant downtown in which it sits. That is the power of adaptive reuse: making something new out of something old. We preserve history to create space for the future.
We’d like to introduce you to the newest member of our team, Bob Speck, PE. We are very excited to have him on board, because he brings with him years of structural engineering and design experience as well as a passion for and deep commitment to sustainable design.
Over the past ten years, Bob has pursued several passions, among them the design of custom, efficient, timber-framed homes and barns for builders throughout New England and upstate New York. Clients included The Wadsworth Company, Vermont Timber Frames, and Vermont Barns. During this time he also consulted with Engineering Ventures on timber frame engineering, building sciences, and sustainable design. He is known for his ability to develop design solutions that integrate efficient structural design with sustainable, time-tested building practices and architectural goals.
Bob began his career with 18 years at Ryan-Biggs Associates, where he began as a project engineer and became a business partner with leadership roles in hiring, staff development, and quality improvement. His engineering work while there included hospitals, parking structures, schools and colleges, historic buildings, restaurants, office buildings, residences, and specialty structures. His leadership work while there included serving as president of the Mohawk-Hudson section of the American Society of Civil Engineers. His research work on drifted snow loads on buildings, performed while completing his master’s degree at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, is still referenced in building codes.
In addition to his work in engineering, Bob has 40 years of experience in the snow sports industry, having served as a program manager of the Mountain Sports School at Stratton Mountain and as a training coordinator at the Adaptive Sports Foundation. He continues to enjoy promoting the health and wellness benefits of fitness, yoga, and outdoor adventure. He lives in Manchester, Vermont, with his wife Jo Kirsch, co-owner of Heart of the Village Yoga Studio.
(From top: Bob Speck; Barn Frame, Vermont Barns; Home Addition, The Wadsworth Company)
Brattleboro-based firm Stevens & Associates, known for its structural and civil engineering and landscape architecture and planning services, has merged with Alan Berry Architect to expand its architectural offerings. The architecture department, headed by architect Alan Lindsay Berry, adds four employees to the Stevens team: Berry, Frank Balla, Timberly Hund, and Stephen Jarosak. Denny Frehsee, formerly of Williams & Frehsee, has joined the team as a consultant to help with business development, design, and construction oversight.
The architecture team will focus on environmentally sustainable and traditionally inspired design. As members of the Congress for New Urbanism and the U.S. Green Building Council, Stevens & Associates has always valued smart growth and traditional neighborhood design that fits into the historic context of New England’s towns and villages. The firm now brings those values to the architectural realm. “Traditional designs are all around us, and have stood the test of time,” said Bob Stevens, founder of Stevens & Associates. “Most of our clients want buildings that pay homage to the historical context in which they will sit.”
Alan Berry brings over thirty years of experience to Stevens & Associates. His previously Rhode Island based firm, Alan Berry Architect, was known for its emphasis on historic preservation and adaptive reuse as well as the use of energy-efficient technologies. His projects have varied, ranging from civic and liturgical designs to hospitality, recreation, and museum quality restorations. “Regional vernacular and traditional architecture is based on local traditions, needs, and materials,” says Berry. “We are building on the knowledge base of the generations who came before us.”
Offering a full suite of design services will allow Stevens & Associates to give clients a more comprehensive package, according to Stevens. “With everyone under one roof, we can offer better value for the design dollar,” he said.
Stevens & Associates has several architectural projects already underway, including the Brooks House redevelopment in Brattleboro, the Dot’s Restaurant redevelopment in Wilmington, and an art barn renovation and addition for Hilltop Montessori School in Brattleboro.
The 17-unit Algiers Village Housing project in Guiford is nearing completion, with construction set to finish this summer. Owned and developed by Windham & Windsor Housing Trust, the new construction will house income eligible tenants. Stevens & Associates worked with Duncan Wisniewski Architecture, providing civil and structural engineering for the project.
The project site was originally classified as a brownfield due to a small amount of contamination from previous uses. The nonprofit group Friends of Algiers, which owns and is renovating the Guilford General Store, held the property and restored it to health before selling it to WWHT for development.
Stevens & Associates’ involvement in this project coincided with our work on the Algiers waterline project, which extended a waterline from Brattleboro to the Algiers village area. The new housing would not have been possible without the added waterline.
In part 4 of our blog series, we explore what makes a neighborhood walkable. In previous installments, we’ve covered what TND is, why we as a firm encourage it, and how density and scale contribute to “human-scaled” environments.
Walkable areas include an appropriate street grid and providing pedestrian amenities such as landscaping, benches, and appropriate lighting.
Dead-end streets, cul-de-sacs, and large parking lots all make an area feel less walkable to pedestrians. Walkers need streets to go somewhere and to connect to other streets that go somewhere. Grid-like patterns of straight streets are the easiest to navigate as a pedestrian. Long, unnecessary curves and circuitous routes make people want to use their cars.
Think about walking in downtown Brattleboro. People skip through parking lots, over landscaped areas, and across non-crosswalk-marked parts of roads to get where they are going as quickly as possible. And that’s in a fairly compact, grid-like downtown!
Pedestrian amenities also make an area feel more walkable. Benches to sit on, shade trees to sit and stand under, and well-lit pathways all make areas feel friendlier and safer for pedestrians. Such elements are somewhat missing in Brattleboro at the moment—the sidewalks aren’t quite wide enough downtown because of street widening. But walk along the Whetstone pathway (by the Food CoOp), and you will find benches and lighting, and a pleasant view of the Brook (and our resident ducks).
When you make new developments—or extensions to existing ones—feel like historic downtowns, they encourage walking instead of driving. That improves the environmental profile of the development and, some suggest, the health of residents.
For more information on creating walkable communities, visit the America Walks website, where you can download a guide: Steps to a Walkable Community.
Walking in Manhattan is distinctly different from walking down a rural country lane, a suburban neighborhood, or a small town’s Main Street. Why? A lot of it has to do with setback and scale.
Setback refers to how far parts of a building are from the street or sidewalk. In urban areas, buildings are often right up against the sidewalk, whereas in rural areas they’re set way back. Conventional suburban development features big front yards, long driveways, and garages set closer to the road than houses. This set-up favors the automobile, and makes walking feel less desirable.
Scale refers to how large the buildings are. On that Manhattan street, with skyscrapers set really close to the street, you can feel like you’re walking through a tunnel. Rural areas feel spread out because the buildings are relatively small compared to the landscape, and placed far apart.
Small town Main Streets are somewhere in between—the buildings are close to the street, but usually no more than four stories tall. They feel accessible, “human scaled.”
Traditional Neighborhood Development (TND) advocates narrow front setbacks (close to the street), with garages set farther from the street than the main building. Smaller buildings are preferred over skyscrapers, generally, unless you’re in a really urban setting.
In a lot of places, the zoning regulations require large setbacks and allow larger buildings—so TND requires a variance or zoning ordinance change.
(Photo: Aiyou Zho; Vintage Township in Lubbock, TX.)
Traditional Neighborhood Development (TND) uses compact, mixed use development and high residential densities to achieve walkable, vibrant neighborhoods.
When they think of “compact” and “high-density” development, most people think of skyscrapers, high-rises, and millions of people: Manhattan. But that’s not the kind of density TND uses. A more useful model is downtown Brattleboro, Northampton, or Keene. Two- to four-story buildings with residential and commercial uses mixed in a central core, surrounded by a mix of single- and multi-family homes on small lots.
Technically, the minimum residential density for a neighborhood to feel “walkable” is about 4 units per acre (single-family homes on quarter-acre lots; the Round Lake Road TND at left is a little more dense than that). When you get upwards of 30 units per acre, things start to feel more urban (think Manhattan).
Putting commercial and residential properties in close proximity (apartments above retail and office space, for example) makes a downtown vibrant and useable by its residents. Ideally, some residents live, work, and shop largely in a walkable radius.
Before cars existed, people lived and worked within a much smaller radius than they do now. TND seeks to shrink that radius to pre-automobile levels, at least in part. Doing so has obvious environmental benefits—less driving means less gas—but it also has other, less tangible benefits. Residents who walk to work and errands run into their neighbors and know their shopkeepers and local officials. This leads to an increased sense to community.
That, after all, is TND’s ultimate goal: to create community.
(This is the third in a series of posts about TND. For background, read the first and second.)
Last week we covered why Traditional Neighborhood Development is important to our communities and why Stevens & Associates finds it valuable as a practice. This week, we’ll being our look at what TND actually isand how to do it.Let’s start with a list—each of these items will be covered in depth, with examples, in future weeks.
Compact, Mixed-Use Development: Think Main Street USA, with multi-story buildings that house apartments and offices over storefronts and restaurants.
Minimum Residential Density: How many residential units (houses or apartments) per acre. The sweet spot is somewhere between 4 and 30 units per acre, depending on the neighborhood.
Narrower Front Setbacks: Essentially, putting houses closer to the road and sidewalks.
Greater Front Setbacks for Garages: To get houses closer to the road, you have to put garages farther from the road (a bigger setback).
“In-Scale” Building Design: Pedestrians tend to gravitate to buildings that are smaller and human-sized. Think townhouse, not skyscraper.
Orientation of Buildings to the Street: Main Streets with street-facing storefronts, residential neighborhoods with porches and front doors make a big difference in how an area feels to residents.
Walkable Street Patterns: Basically, creating a network of streets that get people—pedestrians—from one place to another. Not cul-de-sacs, dead ends, and circuitous routes.
Village-Style Roadway Design: The streets in most New England villages and towns are narrow, designed for the slower traffic of a horse-and-buggy era. TND suggests keeping them that way to make them more pedestrian friendly.
Pedestrian Amenities: Sidewalk width, lighting, benches, and street landscaping all contribute to an enjoyable pedestrian experience and encourage residents to walk.
Design and Landscaping of Parking Lots: Putting parking lots behind or beside buildings, instead of in front, makes more room streetside for pedestrians.
Public Parks, Town Greens, and Village Squares: Our communities need gathering spaces, and have traditionally provided them with central squares and greens. These gathering spaces are critical to creating a sense of community in a place.
Website by 10F Design