Don't demolish my house! Travel to see how others meet architectural challenges: preserving old building when building new ones

Brasov, Romania, where a narrow alley is one of the old city's landmarks.

Problem
A man in England, who bought his council house in Birkenhead, does not want to move when the area all around is redeveloped. My view is that old buildings should be preserved.

ARCHITECTURAL CHALLENGE
Of all the architects in the world, all the schools of architecture, not one can develop the land in front and behind and either side of this man's house in Birkenhead, leaving him in place with the access road? Sorry, I don't believe it. If the council or anybody else owned only the two houses either side they would redevelop them.

But they have a huge area. Run a contest for schoolchildren to design an estate preserving his house in the middle. A local or national newspaper could run a competition, ideally in conjunctionw ith the council.

OPTIONS USED ELSEWHERE
They could even make a feature of his place as a historic centrepiece with history plaques and pictures of the old days. Plenty of other places have managed to build around a building which can't be demolished.

GREECE
In Greece there's a skyscraper with a void deck around an old building where a tenant refused to move out.

USA
In the USA they can move a building intact from one place to another. He doesn't want to leave the area. So put his house on the edge of the estate, allowing him to keep all the nostalgic conveniences of his house, plus the local area, just a few yeards away instead of the middle and offer him compensation for the annoyance of the move and insure for huge compensation for any damage to his property during the move.

It's absurd to claim they need that small piece of land. They don't need his house which occupies a fraction of the large estate. You could not have a solid building across his land because housing requires windows. Skyscrapers have empty land between them for parking and access for emergency vehicles.

SINGAPORE
A typical government skyscraper estate in Singapore is built like the old quadrangles. It has an edge of roads for buses, cars, deliveries, emergency vehicles. A central pedestrian park has trees, a water feature, statues and a playground for the children. You could build houses or even skyscrapers in the style of Singapore estates leaving his house in the centre of a park with an access road.

CANADA TODAY & YESTERDAY
A old bank building of the Bank of Canada in Ottawa Canada is preserved in front of a skyscraper. I think the design of the skyscraper whould have echoed at least one feature of the old building.

CANADA'S Answer - Habitat in the 1960s
Alternatively build a stepped design like habitat, a stepped building, with his small one the centre of a V shape pair of skyscrapers.

Alternatively, build an M shape estate. Or build modern three-storey and four-storey terraced houses either side.

HEIGHT IN HARROW, London, England
In Harrow, London, and other suburban areas, the planning departments happily allow developers to build huge mosques and temples and skyscrapers alongside or within feet of two-storey residential homes (old terraces). Just ensure he has light and road access.

(While the developers are organizing, they should offer him a free restoration of his house, wiring and so on to bring it in line with whatever else they are building.)

PRESERVATION OF THE HISTORIC ERA
If he was born there, and he is 66, this house is 66 years old or older. How old does it have to be to get a preservation order? Just design an estate echoing the gabled roof over the front door and the steep tiled roof and the stepped brick front.

Stepped Buildings
My view is that the height of one building should not dominate the next. Buildings should be stepped, for safer evacuation in emergencies. The lowest part of the building should not be higher than the one alongside.

This was done in Habitat built in Canada by architect Safdie.

I've seen a stepped building in Singapore.

Another stepped building is in north-west London, near Waitrose supermarket in South Harrow. This would be a step in the right direction.
Srepped building in Harrow. Photo by Angela Lansbury.

Useful Websites
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5210471/Council-estate-man-not-let-house-demolished.html#comments

See article on preserving facades in article on facadism in Wikipedia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facadism

Moving an entire house in the USA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=20dj5MEmcv4

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.