Techniques

a preservation toolkit joining techniques and technology

Conservation techniques are an amalgamation of traditional craft skills developed over millenia to shape and join materials synethisized with treatment processes to remove, reverse or limit deterioration buildings have experienced. For instance, repairs to a window sash - part furniture, part sophisticted environmental machine - should contine to allow the window to work as designed, rather than just dipping the entire frame in glues that freeze all of the joints, creating an apparition that proposes to be something it is not.

There is rarely only one technique that can be used for building repair. Instead we must make decisions in context based on the needs of the building, time, and budget. The goal is to have a toolbox with many options for repair that can be adapted to each project. If you always repair in the same way, you are not doing the best for each building, recognizing each is unique. While fear of all things new is a weakness, so too is accepting one new material or technique at the expense of all others, limiting the repair of buildings to a one-size-fits-all approach.

In many ways, a well-developed building repair toolkit allows you the freedom to improvise and create much the way a musician plays the "same piece of music" to meet different audiences, venues, and moods. In this section, we seek to expand the available options for repair, drawing on an understanding of materials and the ways in which they can be manipulated, and incorporating the best of both old and new technology.

Work in progress, etc- new stuff being added as we complete it, etc.