Improving Buildings and Beyond
Your building functions as a single unit but comprises countless moving parts and pieces—sometimes even multiple buildings. Our design teams are built to mirror this structure. With expertise across all functions and facets of design, we inject the design process with knowledge, collaboration, and partnership.
Highlighting and reinvigorating historic character and significance is a craft that demands careful and thoughtful design solutions. Cushing Terrell’s team of historic preservationists is equipped with knowledge of the most granular aspects of the built environment — aspects that transcend a moment in time.
Historic Buildings Reimagined
Our teams can advise on the adaptive reuse of buildings, an approach that values a structure’s original look but revitalizes it with a new purpose. The benefits of adaptive reuse are:
- Maintaining cultural heritage by repurposing properties for current needs.
- Reducing a community’s carbon footprint by maintaining some existing materials. Adaptive reuse of a building may save 50 to 75% of embodied carbon.
- Minimizing urban sprawl by using existing structures that often make up a city’s core.
“Every new project presents an opportunity to grow as a professional and improve our firm’s processes. We are constantly working to bridge the past and the future, using new technologies to study, preserve, and improve old buildings.”
Ava Alltmont, Historic Preservation Architect | New Orleans
How Our Team Can Support Your Project
- Historic Inventory and Survey
This involves documenting a historic resource through photography, writing a description of the building, and submitting forms to a state’s historic preservation office (SHPO). This becomes part of the state’s database of historic resources. - HABS/HAER Documentation
This involves documenting a historic building through photography, producing measured as-built drawings of the existing building, creating field notes for all possible descriptive qualities of the site including elevations of the exterior and interior. The focus is less on research and more on measurements and as-built drawings to document a structure. Submitting the drawings for inclusion in the national database of HABS/HAER drawings is optional. - Section 106 and Section 110 Compliance (Interdisciplinary Assessment and documentation process for properties that receive Federal funding)
These are documentation and assessment processes that identify the presence of cultural resources, determine their significance, and define the area in which cultural resources might be impacted by proposed work. The typical scope includes surveys, evaluations of significance and integrity, existing conditions assessments, and sometimes historic resource reviews. The findings are typically documented in a report that identifies historic resources, and the potential impact development would have on those resources. - Historic Tax Credit Parts 1, 2, and 3 Applications
This is a three-part process for obtaining federal tax credits for historic rehabilitation work. Part 1 of the process focuses on descriptions of the building and its significance. Part 2 describes the condition of the building and the proposed rehabilitation work, which is evaluated in accordance with the Secretary of the Interior’s Standards for the Treatment of Historic Properties. Part 3 of the application is submitted after the work is complete and the National Park Service certifies that the project meets the Standards and is a “certified rehabilitation.” - National Register of Historic Places Nominations
These nominations involve research and documenting the history of a building or site to determine whether the property meets the National Register Criteria for Evaluation. This includes photographing the significant resource(s), documenting findings, researching the resource’s significance, writing a narrative, creating maps, and evaluating its integrity. Nominations can be for individual buildings, sites, a collection of buildings that create a district, or amendments to an existing nomination. - Historic Structure Reports
We produce historic structure reports, which can serve as an important guide for all changes contemplated for a historic property as well as offer information for ongoing maintenance. They include a narrative on the development of the place, evaluation of significance and integrity, a condition assessment that identifies sources and effects of deterioration of physical fabric, and outline “treatment” approaches in accordance with the Secretary of the Interior’s Standards for the Treatment of Historic Properties. Historic Structure Reports provide documentary information about a property’s history and existing condition and can also address owner goals for the use or re-use of the property. - Architectural Material Analysis
These services include assessing, evaluating, and reporting on the physical properties and characteristics of existing materials. We can also provide guidance on material compatibility with historic contexts. - Master Planning
Historic Preservation principles can be integrated into master planning by using a research-driven design process where historical context informs the analysis and proposed interventions of opportunities and challenges associated with a place and can serve to guide proposed interventions. Additional services include historic preservation planning, which gives an overview of an area’s historic significance and suggestions for identifying and preserving its character. Services may also include the development of design guidelines for a Historic District. These guidelines are typically used by staff who interpret relevant regulations, standards, and guidelines; historic district commissions, designers, property owners, or other entities having jurisdiction over the management of change to historic places. - Building Maintenance and Long-Range Plans
Building maintenance may include analysis and guidance on how to work with or update existing systems in historic buildings. Long-range plans include feasibility studies, determining existing uses of a building and potential uses, and recommendations on how to redevelop the building.Â
Episodes of Cushing Terrell’s podcast, “Good, Thoughtful Hosts”:
From the Cushing Terrell blog:
- Historic Preservation: Improving Buildings and Beyond
- Montana State University’s Beloved, Historic Romney Hall Awarded LEED Gold | Cushing Terrell
- Historic Building in Downtown Billings Sees New Life as a Hub for Entrepreneurs | Cushing Terrell
- Land (Re) Use and Climate Change: Breathing New Life into Old Buildings | Cushing Terrell
A Full-Service Team
Cushing Terrell’s Historic Preservation team offers a wide range of historic preservation design, reporting, and planning services throughout the United States.
Our in-depth expertise covers materials and systems, building behavior and pathologies, historic materials and their uses and resiliency, and how weather and other outside factors impact both structural integrity and character-defining features. This knowledge provides our team with a substantial background for constructing and implementing preservation plans.
We offer full architectural services for all phases of architectural and engineering projects including preservation, restoration, rehabilitation, adaptive reuse, reconstruction, and sensitive new contextual design.
Collaborative and Technology-Enabled
Much of our historic preservation work occurs in parallel with Cushing Terrell’s other disciplines. We collaborate with architects, building envelope specialists, structural and civil engineers, electrical and mechanical engineers, and interior designers to bring forward unique solutions specific to each project’s needs.
From ground-penetrating radar to 3D building scanning, advanced in-house technology solutions help us fully understand the project at hand. We constantly seek out opportunities to incorporate new technologies, testing, and computer modeling into the planning and documenting stages of our process.
Recognition
Stewardship Award | November 2023
LBJ Suite Furnishings Conservation; U.S. General Services Administration; Austin, TX
Preservation Austin Merit Awards
Historic Preservation Award of Adaptive Reuse | 2022
Romney Hall at Montana State University; Bozeman, MT
City of Bozeman Historic Preservation Advisory Board
Honorable Mention, Preservation | September 2021
Alberta Bair Theatre; Billings, MT
Yellowstone Preservation Society
Grow Smart Award | December 2020
Tenth and Main Building; Boise, ID
Idaho Smart Growth
Top Projects People’s Choice Award (Renovation) | September 2020
Tenth and Main Building, Kount Tenant Improvement; Boise, ID
Idaho Business Review
Lewis & Clark County Historic Preservation Award | June 2019
Carroll College Chapel; Helena, MT
Lewis & Clark County Commission
Building Performance, Existing Building | 2019
Cushing Terrell [formerly CTA] Office; Billings, MT
USGBC Mountain West Leadership Awards
Building Excellence Awards, Mayor’s Choice | 2019
Tenth and Main Revitalization
City of Boise; Boise, ID
Outstanding Achievement in Historic Preservation | April 2018
Masonic Temple Lodge No. 18 Rehabilitation; Bozeman, MT
Bozeman Planning Department
Preservation Excellence Award | June 2018
Masonic Temple Lodge No. 18 Rehabilitation; Bozeman, MT
Montana Preservation Alliance
Beautification Award | November 2017
Masonic Temple Lodge No. 18 Rehabilitation; Bozeman, MT
Bozeman Beautification Advisory Board
Public-Private Organizations, Most Compatible Addition Award | May 2017
St. Patrick House, St. Patrick Hospital; Missoula, MT
Missoula Historic Preservation Commission
Montana Historic Preservation Award, Outstanding Heritage Stewardship| January 2017
[Building Owner: Billings School District 2]
McKinley & Broadwater Elementaries; Billings, MT
Montana Historical Society/State Historical Preservation Office
Orchid Award, Historic Contribution | April 2016
Kimberly School District, L.A. Thomas Gymnasium; Kimberly, ID
Preservation Idaho Orchids and Onions Awards