You know that feeling when you walk into an abandoned building and see plants growing through the floorboards? There’s something weirdly beautiful about it – like nature is having this slow conversation with whatever humans built there decades ago.
I’ve been thinking about this a lot since I somehow ended up facilitating a workshop on building restoration. Which is honestly hilarious because six months ago I was still googling “how to fix water damage” for my own apartment and watching YouTube videos about spackling at 2am.
The whole thing started when Maria Gonzalez from Portland’s community development office found my blog and asked if I wanted to teach restoration techniques to local builders and architects. “We have all these gorgeous old buildings that could be amazing,” she told me, “but everyone keeps treating restoration like they’re creating a museum exhibit.”
That hit me immediately.
I live in a converted textile factory from 1892 that sat empty for twenty years before someone turned it into apartments in the early 2000s. The restoration was all about the aesthetic – exposed brick, polished concrete, industrial light fixtures. It looked great in the rental listing photos. Living in it felt like being inside a very pretty refrigerator.
When I moved in three years ago, this place was basically a sterile box with really high ceilings and massive windows that somehow provided no actual connection to the outside world. Which made no sense because the bones of this building are incredible – thick brick walls that should regulate temperature naturally, soaring ceilings perfect for air circulation, windows positioned to catch light all day. All that potential was just… sitting there unused.
So when Maria asked me to design this workshop, I knew I wanted to approach restoration differently. Not just fixing old buildings to look like they used to, but finding ways to honour their history while making them actually support human wellbeing and work with natural systems instead of against them.
The workshop ended up being three days at the old Riverside Elementary School – which has been empty since the district consolidated five years ago and is itself a restoration candidate. Perfect venue, honestly. Built in 1924 with these enormous windows, solid oak floors, and a gym with skylights that created the most gorgeous light patterns throughout the day.
I planned the curriculum around what I started calling “regenerative restoration” – basically going beyond just fixing what’s broken to actually enhancing how buildings can support life. Day one was assessment strategies for understanding how buildings could work with natural systems. Day two covered materials and integration techniques. Day three was hands-on work.
What I totally didn’t expect was the group I got. I’d figured it would be mostly contractors and maybe some architects. Instead I had everyone from a retired teacher who inherited her grandmother’s Victorian to a city council member interested in adaptive reuse policies to a young couple who bought a 1950s ranch and wanted to restore it without destroying its character.
The retired teacher, Dorothy, ended up being one of the most engaged participants. She’d been struggling with her grandmother’s house for two years – it needed major work but she couldn’t bear to gut all the features that held family memories. During our assessment exercise, she realised that most of the “problems” with the house were actually symptoms of being disconnected from natural cycles.
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The basement flooded every spring not because the foundation was failing, but because landscaping changes over decades had redirected water flow. The upstairs bedrooms were stuffy and uncomfortable not because the windows were wrong, but because blocked ventilation pathways prevented natural air circulation.
By day three, Dorothy had developed a restoration plan that addressed these issues while actually enhancing the home’s original design. Instead of installing central air, she’d restore natural ventilation by reopening blocked airways and using window treatments to modulate airflow. Rather than completely waterproofing the basement, she’d work with water patterns through permeable landscaping and strategic drainage.
The hands-on component was where everything clicked. I’d arranged for us to work on one section of the old school – a classroom that had suffered water damage and been closed off for years. Instead of just fixing the damage, we approached it as an opportunity to create a demonstration space showing how restoration could improve both historical integrity and environmental performance.
We started by carefully removing damaged plaster to expose the original brick walls. The craftsmanship was beautiful – you could see subtle variations in brick colour and hand-troweled mortar joints. But instead of just patching and repainting, we used lime-based plasters that would let the walls breathe naturally, preventing future moisture problems while maintaining the room’s original proportions.
The windows were another revelation. The original 1924 windows were structurally solid, but decades of paint had sealed them shut. Rather than replacing them with modern units, we restored their operability and added interior storm panels that improved insulation without changing the exterior appearance. The result performed better than modern replacements while maintaining historical authenticity.
But the real magic happened when we addressed the lighting. The classroom had these incredible north-facing windows that provided beautiful, even natural light all day. Previous “updates” had added fluorescent fixtures that completely overwhelmed the natural light, creating this harsh institutional feel. We removed the fluorescents and installed adjustable LED systems that complemented rather than competed with daylight, automatically dimming as natural light increased.
By the end of day three, that single classroom had transformed into a space that felt both historically authentic and genuinely nurturing. The natural light, breathable walls, and restored ventilation created an environment where you could actually imagine children learning and thriving.
What struck me most was how the process changed everyone’s thinking about restoration work. Instead of seeing old buildings as problems to solve, participants began seeing them as partners in creating healthier environments. The city council member started talking about policy changes that could incentivize regenerative restoration over demolition. The young couple realised their ranch house’s “dated” features – like the central atrium and cross-ventilation design – were actually sophisticated biophilic elements that just needed to be restored to function properly.
Dorothy sent me photos last month of her grandmother’s house mid-restoration.
She’d implemented almost everything from her workshop plan, and the results were stunning. Not because the house looked dramatically different, but because it felt alive again. The rooms had natural airflow, the basement stayed dry through the wettest spring in years, and she said her stress levels dropped significantly since the indoor air quality improved.
I’m planning another workshop for spring, this time focused specifically on residential applications. Because here’s what I’ve learned: restoration isn’t just about preserving the past – it’s about creating futures where our built environments actively support the health of both people and planet. And honestly, given how many people are living in spaces that actively work against their wellbeing, this feels like some of the most important work I could be doing right now.
Plus, there’s something deeply satisfying about taking a space that’s been abandoned or neglected and helping it remember how to support life again. Kind of like what I’ve been doing with my own tiny apartment, just on a much bigger scale.
