Part 1 - Community Members Receive AIA Minnesota Collaborative Achievement Awards
Saturday, October 1, 2022 at 3:48AM
Meghan Elliot
Article by Becky Fillinger, Photos provided
Meghan Elliot and Dan Collison are the recipients of this year’s AIA Minnesota Collaborative Achievement Award. They both have contributed much to the quality of our physical environments, and they work collaboratively – which is the main criteria for the award. We spoke to them both, with today's focus being on Meghan Elliot, Founder and Principal of New History.
Q: Congratulations on winning the AIA Minnesota 2022 Collaborative Achievement Award. The jurors noted your creative, sustained, and passionate service to the future of Minnesota communities, as well as your collaborative work with a wide variety of partners to accomplish goals that advance the profession. Even within your company, you collaborate with many professionals. Could you tell us more about your integrated team approach to building reuse?
A: Our mission is to leverage history to unlock the economic, community, and cultural value of buildings and sites. We believe that the built environment embodies those stories that tell us where we came from, who we are, and where we are going. We act as a resource for our clients, our clients’ clients, and the broader professional community. I created New History to be a highly collaborative and interdisciplinary team, with team members who are empowered to help their clients and projects. Every team member has a depth of knowledge in one or more of the many complex aspects of building reuse: we collaborate internally and externally to solve challenging problems in order to increase the use and viability of the buildings and sites around us. I am excited to see my team at New History grow well beyond what I initially created based on the core values, systems, and professional practices that I started.
Switch House, 514 2nd Street SE. The iconic Soap Factory builidng was transformed into a unique business, retail, and health hub using Minnesota’s state historic tax credits.
Hosmer Library, 347 E 36th Street, is a local landmark and designated in the National Register of Historic Places. New History provided historic preservation consulting and design guidance.
Q: Your website tells us that use is the best form of preservation. Please tell us more about this idea.
A: All unused buildings are eventually lost – either by demolition, deterioration, or neglect.
As an industry, we practice a materials-based preservation, rather than people-based preservation. The practice of historic preservation is based on the retention of specific materials: physical materials and architectural features are considered “historic” if they represent a building’s historic significance – which generally means that they date from a specific period in time. But we evolve faster than our buildings… we change when and where we work, how we communicate, our family lifestyles, and our expectations for climate and temperature control. In order for buildings to stay relevant, they need to change with us. The guidelines for preservation seek to minimize physical change. There is often, if not always, a tension between historic preservation design guidelines and ongoing use. For me and New History, the stories that a building tells - and will tell in the future - are lost without ongoing use.
To put it simply: use it or lose it!
Q: How may we follow your news?
A: Please follow me and my company on LinkedIn, Twitter, two Instagram accounts: newhistoryconsultants, liveleijona and our websites: New History and Revitalize MN.
