I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the difference between renovation and restoration, especially after some conversations with folks in our church building committee. We’re trying to figure out what to do with our fellowship hall – built in 1962, showing its age, but with good bones underneath decades of unfortunate decorating choices.
This got me reading about restoration projects that actually worked, where someone took a building that had lost its way and helped it remember what it was supposed to be. Not the kind of gut-job renovation you see on TV, but thoughtful work that honours what came before while making spaces usable for today.
The best example I’ve come across is a 1920s bank building in Portland that was converted into a coffee shop. What caught my attention wasn’t just that they preserved the original terrazzo floors and coffered ceiling – though that was impressive – but how they integrated plants and natural elements without making it look like some trendy design magazine spread. The whole space feels alive in a way that most commercial spaces don’t.
I read an interview with the architect who worked on it, and she mentioned spending three years just figuring out how to balance the building’s historic character with contemporary needs. Three years. That’s patience you don’t see much anymore, but it shows in the final result.
This connects to something I’ve noticed in my own home modifications over the years. The changes that work best are the ones that work with what the house already wants to be, not against it. When I was making our home more accessible for my wife, I could have covered up everything with drywall and started fresh. Instead, I spent time figuring out how to work with the existing structure.
Our 1987 ranch house has good natural light – the original builder oriented it well on the lot. Rather than fight that, I enhanced it. Enlarged a few windows where the structure allowed, replaced heavy curtains with lighter ones, used the existing window placement as the starting point for arranging furniture and workspaces.
The basement project was similar. Instead of the typical dropped ceiling and wall-to-wall carpeting approach, I looked at what was already there. Solid concrete foundation walls from the 1980s, exposed floor joists that were actually pretty attractive once cleaned up. I treated the concrete with a sealer that brought out the texture rather than hiding it, cleaned and oiled the wood instead of painting it.
My neighbour’s son, who’s studying architecture, calls this kind of approach “reading the building.” Understanding what the structure was trying to do originally, then finding ways to support that rather than override it. It’s more work than just covering everything up, but the results feel more honest.
I’ve been reading about larger restoration projects that follow this same philosophy. The Gando School Library in Burkina Faso is a good example – architect Francis Kéré studied traditional building methods in that community and created a modern library that used those time-tested techniques. Double roof for natural cooling, local clay bricks, construction methods that local craftspeople already knew.
What I find interesting is how this project didn’t just restore a building – it restored traditional knowledge that was being lost. The young people who helped make those bricks learned skills their grandparents knew but their parents had been taught to consider old-fashioned.
There’s something powerful about the idea that restoration can be about more than just buildings. Sometimes you’re restoring ways of working, ways of thinking about how humans inhabit spaces.
I saw something similar, on a smaller scale, in Detroit a few years back. The Heidelberg Project had been partially demolished by the city, and artist Tyree Guyton rebuilt it with more attention to practical community needs. Art installations, yes, but also water management systems to prevent flooding, solar power for community workshops, food gardens integrated with the artistic elements.
It’s the kind of project that makes you realise how artificial the line is between art, architecture, and community development. All of it is really about creating environments where people can thrive.
Even at the scale of a single room, these principles apply. A friend asked me to help her figure out what to do with her enclosed porch – a 1950s addition to their house that had become a dumping ground for outdoor furniture and holiday decorations. The standard solution would have been to insulate it, drywall the walls, install wall-to-wall carpet, turn it into another indoor room.
Instead, we looked at what the space wanted to be. Big windows on three sides, concrete floor, exposed ceiling joists. It wanted to be a transition space between indoors and outdoors, not another living room. We enhanced that character instead of fighting it.
Sealed the concrete floor and added radiant heating underneath for winter comfort. Left the ceiling exposed but cleaned and sealed the wood. Set up the space for my friend’s pottery hobby – the concrete floor can handle water and clay mess, the natural light is perfect for working, and she can open all those windows for ventilation when she’s glazing pieces.
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Now it’s her favorite room in the house. She spends time out there even when she’s not working on pottery, just sitting with her coffee in the morning, watching birds at the feeder outside. The space found its purpose once we stopped trying to make it something it wasn’t.
This approach – working with existing conditions rather than against them – turns out to be more sustainable too. You’re not throwing away materials and labor that are already in place. The concrete in that porch floor represents energy and resources that went into mixing, pouring, and finishing it seventy years ago. Covering it up with carpet would have wasted all of that.
I’ve been reading about this concept called “embodied energy” – the resources that went into creating materials and structures that already exist. When you tear down a building or cover up original materials, you’re essentially throwing away all that energy and starting over. When you restore and reuse, you’re building on work that’s already been done.
This is part of why our church building committee discussions have gotten so interesting. Our fellowship hall was built in the early ’60s with some good ideas – high ceilings, big windows facing the courtyard, solid construction. But it’s been “updated” several times over the decades, usually by covering up original features rather than enhancing them.
The windows got covered with heavy drapes. The original terrazzo floor got covered with carpet. Dropped ceiling tiles hid the original height. Each change was probably well-intentioned, but the cumulative effect was to make the space feel smaller, darker, and more institutional.
We’re talking now about an approach that would reverse some of these changes. Take down the dropped ceiling, remove the carpet to reveal the original floor, replace the heavy drapes with something that lets in more natural light. Add some plants – not elaborate landscaping, just enough greenery to make the space feel more alive.
The resistance isn’t coming from cost – most of these changes would actually save money compared to a full renovation. The resistance is coming from people who’ve gotten used to thinking that newer is automatically better, that covering things up is the same as improving them.
But I’ve learned, through my own trial and error at home, that sometimes the best improvement is just revealing what was already there. The original builders often knew things we’ve forgotten about natural light, air circulation, materials that age well. Their solutions might need updating for contemporary accessibility and energy efficiency, but the underlying logic is often sound.
The best restoration projects I’ve seen combine respect for original intentions with honest assessment of current needs. They don’t try to freeze buildings in time, but they don’t erase history either.
Studio Gang’s work on the Arts Club of Chicago is a good example of this balance. They kept the 1918 brick structure but carved out new spaces within it. The old and new elements are in conversation rather than competition. You can see the building’s history while experiencing its contemporary function.
Not every restoration attempt succeeds, of course. I’ve seen plenty of projects that saved decorative elements while destroying the spatial relationships that made buildings work. Historic tax credits sometimes create perverse incentives – maintain the facade but gut everything behind it that actually matters.
The difference, I think, is whether you approach restoration as a listening exercise or an imposition exercise. Are you trying to understand what the building is trying to tell you about how it wants to be used? Or are you just using it as a backdrop for your own ideas about what a space should be?
This takes time and patience, which isn’t always compatible with construction schedules and budgets. That Portland coffee shop architect mentioned spending three years just in the planning phase. Most projects don’t have that luxury. But even small amounts of observation and consideration can make a difference.
When I’m working on modifications at home, I try to live with a space for a while before making changes. See how light moves through it during different seasons. Notice which areas we naturally gravitate toward and which we avoid. Pay attention to how the space makes us feel at different times of day.
This observation period usually reveals things that wouldn’t show up in measured drawings or photographs. The corner that gets perfect light for reading in winter afternoons. The window that frames the neighbour’s maple tree just right in spring. The sight lines between rooms that make the house feel connected rather than chopped up.
These discoveries become the foundation for any changes. Instead of imposing some preconceived idea about how a room should work, I’m supporting patterns that are already trying to emerge.
I think this is what people mean when they talk about buildings having character. It’s not just decorative details – though those can be important – but the accumulated wisdom of how spaces want to be used. Restoration at its best preserves and enhances that wisdom while adapting it for contemporary needs.
Our church project is still in committee discussions, but I’m optimistic. A few more people are starting to see the potential in working with what we already have rather than covering it up. Sometimes the best way forward is to remember what worked in the first place.
