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Place-based architecture:

In the Perspective of Tools for Knowledge

Arne Høi, Denmark

Pictured: Stokkøya. Photo: Angelica Åkerman.

Text: Malin Zimm
Research: Angelica Åkerman

Table of Contents – Perspectives on Place-Based Architecture

In the Perspective of Tools for Knowledge
Arne Høi, Denmark

Roundtable

On the 14th December 2023 a roundtable was held with the contributing experts to this article, discussing the topic further.

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The most fundamental aspect of place-based architecture is to gain a thorough understanding of a location. In the Nordic region, several analysis tools have contributed to the Nordic knowledge bank. These tools provide effective architectural and cultural historical analyses that can read spatial structures, individual characteristics, and conditions, as well as define places, environments, and buildings that should be preserved. The purpose of this deepened understanding is to generate precise data that can be used for meaningful dialogue. The results of these methods can help us define the identity and conditions of a place, providing essential groundwork for place-based architecture and planning.

An adequate tool to recognize values 

In the 1980 s the SAVE analysis was developed in Denmark by the ministry for environment and planning and Arne Høi has worked with the method since then. SAVE is a method and guidance for mapping the conservation value of buildings, as well as valuable environments and places, to provide a basis for future urban development. The method was named SAVE – Survey of Architectural Values in the Environment. Until 2007 the SAVE method was organized and published as “Municipality Atlas”, supported and initiated by the state. This process stopped in 2007 and after that was each single municipality responsible for pointing out buildings and sites worthy of conservation on a local level. In 2011 the SAVE method was further developed by the Danish Ministry of Culture, Arne Høi was the author to the new SAVE guidance (1). Arne has gained an understanding that about half of Danish municipalities are working with SAVE analysis, but half do not. It is a matter of cost. (2)

Emphasizing specific qualities

The purpose of SAVE was to provide municipalities with a tool to assess not only their buildings but also environments. At the national level, the aim was to ensure that municipalities had an adequate tool to recognize values in urban and rural environments. The SAVE analysis is based on three scales: landscape, neighborhood, and building. Arne Høi points out that SAVE adds knowledge to all processes of development, as it highlights the qualities, describe them, and provide recommendations on how they can be improved. The SAVE model is built to emphasize the specific quality of a place and focus on quality instead of what to do about it. To Arne Høi, it is the best experience from the process of working with SAVE, because it provides a perspective one can carry into the world, bring it into new surroundings, and spread among colleagues.

Arne Høi identifies a risk that numbers will govern the built environment, meaning climate calculations and LCA will out-calculate the place-based values and qualities.

The struggle with definitions and calculations

It is the municipality’s responsibility to ensure operational implementation, analysis, and updating of the local environment. With SAVE, the data from various places in a municipality was compiled into a municipal atlas (kommunatlas) – a comprehensive SAVE analysis of several places in a municipality with common, dominant features. Today, there is no common understanding of how much we preserve and demolish, Arne Høi points out – we only know that 0,2 per cent of all buildings are protected by the state because of their national importance and that the rest is up to the municipality to safeguard. But, Høi emphasises, everything could be cultural heritage if you look at it as a history-carrying layer in the built environment. Legislation and municipalities struggle with definitions, and new EU directives are further complicating things, stating that all buildings must comply with new standards. Arne Høi is concerned that today, despite everyone saying we can't build more, we build and demolish more than ever, and he identifies a risk that numbers will govern the built environment, meaning climate calculations and LCA will out-calculate the place-based values and qualities.

The need to update models and tools  

The SAVE method is used to identify buildings of conservation value based on architectural and historical assessments. Høi recalls a project where students and researchers examined a house together with the Technical University of Denmark (DTU). The Apprentices’ House is a small neglected half-timbered house from 1887 located on Bornholm, Denmark. A life-cycle assessment (LCA) has been conducted to quantify the impacts of different transformation scenarios for this house and identify which of them has the lowest impacts on the environment. The investigations examine the different degrees ofre-insulation and refurbishment methods that can be used and compare them to the climate footprint of brand-new buildings. The project shows that the most climate-friendly way to approach old buildings is not to tear them down, but to refurbish them and, during the refurbishment, use the same materials that were originally used to construct the building. This is done with the conventional LCA measurement method, based on a fifty-year life perspective. But everyone who works with old houses knows that they last at least 200 years – there is a need to update our models and tools, for them to be entirely truthful.(3)

We need to review our building preservation law, so that we can handle larger entities of the built environment that we can protect, not just buildings but entire areas.

A legislation that ensures the preservation of places

SAVE covers certain important aspects in understanding a place but, as Arne Høi says, this is not sufficient. To be able to show a place’s entire story and take all historic layers into consideration, other methods are needed. The work on how to understand a place is constantly evolving. The researchers at Arne Høi’s department are tasked with adding layers and combinations of perspectives to increase the understanding of a place. Similar models are being developed, for example Dive, developed in Norway, which has a broader user group, involving more elements of dialogue and involvement. In contemporary architecture, Høi can trace a new attitude in the form of more historically informed projects, with a critical edge, for example bringing social patterns and power relations into question and demonstrating a critical history of a place, for example the student project that included a mapping of slave trade locations in Copenhagen. This is different from even fifteen years ago, when a museum could be placed on a field without being much more than design and concept. Another positive effect is, according to Arne Høi, that the idea of place-based development was previously often related to the scale of the landscape, whereas now it includes all types of environments.

In a conclusion, Høi appreciates SAVE as a good screening tool for preservation, to gain knowledge of cultural-historical, environmental, and architectural qualities. He suggests that we need to review our building preservation law, so that we can handle larger entities of the built environment that we can protect, not just buildings but entire areas. With the SAVE method, it is possible to quickly get an overview of a large number of buildings and urban environments, providing a solid starting point for shaping a conservation policy or developing a conservation plan or development strategy for an urban area. We need legislation that ensures a preservation evaluation before any building is demolished.

Info

Name/Case: Save analysis
Where: Copenhagen and Denmark
Who: Arne Høi, Head of Institute, Institute of Architecture and Culture, Royal Danish Academy
Finance: National founding for developing the analysis method
When/year: 1988–ongoing
Level/Scale: National, regional, municipality

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