16 complete, rather than prop it up. Both front elevations effectively disappeared. At this stage the remaining building was basically a chimney stack and stairwell, with some nine inch solid external walls remaining in the side passage and rear elevation (hidden behind a hoarding) and attracting much public comment. The front elevation was rebuilt in a stretcher bond with cavity using modern facing bricks, chosen to match a new build scheme behind. The Yorkshire sliding dormer windows acquired glazing bars, as are found elsewhere in Brigg. To maintain a separate identity, the two storey unit was not re-rendered. The shopfronts were reversed with the canted unit on the two storey shop and the on-the-round unit for the dormer shop; the glazing bars were heavier, and more numerous. Some argued that the brickwork should have been in nine inch solid reclaimed bricks; others wanted a cavity with snapped headers. Adjacent retailers thought the shopfronts too heavily glazed, creating a dark interior and no display space. The general public mostly liked the scheme. English Heritage was dismayed. The scheme which replaced the two cottages has followed the scale and grain of the original. Ridge heights and roof details are much the same. In rebuilding the front elevations, the architect decided not to produce a pastiche copy but 'honest' modern rendition of the original form. Ironically, if the two-storey unit had been rendered as before much of this comment would not have arisen. Bearing in mind Dennis Rodwell muses on the concept of urban conservation. Circular advice about questioning the decisions of architects; the requirements of modern retailing; disabled access, fire regulation and building regulations; the resulting building has provided for two sound shop units. In a general economic sense the street scene has been lifted by these units, and one is already let. Lessons are there to be learnt: the same company plans to do the next two adjacent properties which it also owns. Hopefully these will not form the basis for another article. Rob Lawton is project leader of the Brigg Regeneration Project, South Humberside. The opinions of the author do not necessarilyreflect those of the authority, or the architect of the scheme. PRESERVING AND ENHANCING Conservation is a term with enormous variation of meaning. It implies everything when related to the 9arth, nature, rain forests and the ozone layer: finite resources, habitat, life, survival. To my knowledge, the term was first applied to whole areas of our built environment in the mid-l 960s. This was the era of the 'rape' of Worcester and New Towns for Old. I recall two quotations from that time: "The whole idea of preserving and (not or.0 enhancing the character and atmosphere of urban areas is (or ought to be) synonymous with the fundamental objectives of architecture and planning" (Peter Hills, Architectural Review, December 1970). "Conservation means the planning and management of resources to ensure their wise use and continuity of supply" (R J S Hookway, Town and Country Planning School, Belfast 1967). Does conservation, in 1992, determine our essential approach to issues of architecture and planning, or is it a peripheral specialism, whose pinnacle of ambition is the policing of Article 4 Directions? I do not like it, but I still see building and urban conservationists as missionaries in a hostile land. We are continually told, for example, that there are too many Conservation Areas and listed buildings. Architects are still confronted by the received wisdom in their profession which says that all buildings are temporary (designed to a maximum life span of 50 years), and that old buildings are essentially obsolete. Planners focus their attention on unselective change. Traffic engineers see movement as an end in itself, and destroy to accommodate it. I generalise and over-simplify, of course. But when does one see the concepts of resource and habitat protection extended into the field of our built heritage? Does the designation of Conservation Areas act as a restraint on development, or does "preserve or enhance" not prove to be a fatal - if not intentional - flaw of drafting? In many of our professional publications the term conservation is applied only to the visual cosmetics of townscape, the minutiae of architectural detail. Is that all that the Civic Amenities Act offered us back in 1967? Conservation Areas are, by their very nature, the older and more historic parts of our towns and cities. Into these areas we have spent the years since the last war focusing all the most formidable of pressures - comprehensive re-development and high commercial land values, separate land use zoning, slum clearance, road schemes and planning blight. Through none of this catalogue of disasters have we, as a successor to the brave New World approach, developed an embracing philosophy of what we want to see happen with our historic areas. The cosmetic approach to conservation has not been translated into a strategic approach, one that achieves (for example) the positive redirection of new creative pressures elsewhere, and one that encompasses all of the many arguments in favour of urban conservation: history, identity, resource, creative continuity etc. I see conservation as marginalised. I see it dominated by architectural historians, and unrelated to the functions of buildings and historic towns except as historical stage sets. I do not see its dominant motivation being related to the conditions and environments within which people conduct their daily lives. I conclude that until the whole concept of urban conservation is presented upon a broader philosophical base, on a par with our understanding of the term in the sense of finite natural resources, we shall remain fringe players on the professional stage. I want to see us centre stage. Dennis Rodwell FRIAS FSAScot FRSA is an architect in private practice in Edinburgh. CONTEXT 36
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