1 February 2012 Redacción y fotografía: Carlos García Garzón

Historic Area. Danger of Death

Currently, some of the historic buildings of our cities are a real danger of death to bystanders.

The continued deterioration and little or no architectural conservation, is leading to what we can observe from the sidewalks of downtown streets, balconies damaged, detached cornices, facades with tipping ….

The buildings are wearing black veils that commemorate a sense of mourning, mourning.

The owners of the affected properties are responsible for the maintenance of your building. But it is clear that conservation is not among their priorities, the view is.

In some cases, these owners lack financial resources to meet the minimum building construction and repair. But demand for housing in the historic town center is greater than supply, so you only have to sell the property at an affordable price. Over time, the lower the selling price.

Spain is a tourist country, due to many reasons. He is currently second in the world in number of foreign tourists, with over 55 million tourists a year, behind France and ahead of the United States of America.

All these tourists visit the historic town center, and are finding the current look sad. This is another push to take prompt measures to improve the appearance of our streets and squares.

In the few Spanish towns where buildings should make an ITE (Technical Inspection of Buildings), these risks are reduced but not eliminated.

Another problem that increases the risk of accident is the reason for the mandatory maintenance of the facade of buildings protected.

It seems incredible, but in the XXI century, cities of our country require the physical preservation of the facade of its historic buildings, leaving all the technical responsibility to the architect’s work, which must ensure the safety of citizens, now and in the future. Today we use modern tools to play these facades in digital format, later to rise again in a precise manner to the previously demolished. In this way, you would get many advantages:

1) The architect can ensure the stability of the facade.

2) The materials used with better thermal and acoustic. Noise is a problem facing the residents of the city centers.

3) The final price of the work cheapen widely used to power an engine of a dimension greater than that of the old holes in the facade. Moreover, it would need to invest in stabilizing scaffold walls.

4) If projected in a basement, its surface, would occupy 100% of the site as needed.

5) It would eliminate moisture problems on the ground floor of buildings.

6) Easier to sell real estate.

Under our view, when the property possesses conservation cataloging facade only, we see appropriate to maintain its design, without having to hold materials more than 50 or 100 years old.

Logically, if the entire building has a historical interest, the maintenance and conservation work are justified.

Obviously, repairing damaged buildings would be a benefit to the construction industry, creating jobs and revenues from building permits in municipalities, but all citizens would be really benefited.

If deemed appropriate, print the attachment in this article and place it in the building at risk to passersby. At least the citizens may be advised to change their itinerary.

As in the rest of Problems and Solutions, you can send us your views and possible solutions thereof for publication.

 

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