Architects turned detectives

John P.

Copoulos is a Carson City architect, but when he works on buildings that are historic landmarks, he is also part detective.

He starts with photographs and newspaper articles, then takes the investigation inside, sometimes carefully peeling away paint or cleaning layers of dirt to find clues to a building's early history.

These tidbits of information are important because when architects work on projects that are eligible for the national or state Register of Historic Places, they follow U.S.

Department of the Interior standards to maintain the historical integrity of the buildings as much as possible.Usually the structures have undergone many changes through the years, so one of the first steps is figuring out what they were like in the beginning The standards for working on historic landmarks call for making repairs instead of replacing elements whenever feasible and for designing changes in such a way that they can be changed back if necessary.

This can be tricky, especially when redesigning old buildings for new uses and bringing historic structures up to modern codes.

When designing the conversion of St.

Teresa's Church in Carson City to a performance hall, Copoulos had to figure out how to add fire sprinklers, exits, dressing rooms, a loading dock and riser, without harming the building's architectural integrity.

The sprinkler pipes, for instance,were installed so they didn't interrupt any historic elements in the ceiling.

To add an exit, the design called for converting a tall, gothic window into a door,maintaining the arched, upper portion of the window.

In the renovation of its 124-year-old courthouse in Bridgeport, Calif.,Mono County needed to add an elevator and restrooms to comply with the federal Americans with Disabilities Act.

It also needed a jury room and additional offices.

To avoid harming the architecture of the original building, Sweeney's firm designed an addition set slightly apart from the courthouse and connected by a glassed-in corridor.

The addition looks like a modern-era building, rather than pretending to be historic itself, Sweeney says, but it features elements compatible with the old courthouse and the town's character.

The design process is full of judgment calls.

Sometimes parts of a building are so dilapidated that it's not feasible to repair them.

In the renovation of a 1917 high school in Elko, Sweeney's design called for gutting the building and then spraying concrete on the inside to support the original brick structure.

The school, which now houses classrooms again, has a brand new interior, but its unique brick architecture is preserved.

One of the biggest challenges in designing historic landmark renovations is keeping costs down.

Repairs are often more expensive than new construction, and historically authentic materials often cost more than traditional materials.

Occasionally, though, landmark caretakers can get lucky.

In his design of the renovation of the Wungnema House in Mills Park in Carson City, for instance, Copoulos called for replacing some of the home's unusual pink stone.

The house, which had belonged to the mason who built the Stewart Indian School, a national boarding school erected in 1890, had fallen into disrepair over the years.

Finding stone to match could have cost time and money searching through nearby quarries.

But by fluke, city crews found rubble buried in a nearby ditch that turned out to be stone leftover from the original, 1950s construction.

Another challenge is timing.

Landmarks are often in the hands of historical societies, which rely on grants that come in bits and pieces.

Projects then must be divided into small phases and stretched over years.

"It takes a lot of patience and a lot of planning to see what is the best use of dollars for each phase and what needs to be done, first, second and third," Sweeney says.

Meanwhile, architects need to keep their costs down so caretakers of historic landmarks can afford their services.

State government limits how much they can charge on state-funded projects.

"There's not a lot of money to be earned on these projects," Sweeney says."The reason you do it is because of an appreciation for how important the historic fabric is."

He fell in love with historic architecture when he spent his senior year of college studying in Florence, Italy, where countless numbers of centuries-old buildings have been preserved."When I came back, it was a culture shock.

In this society, not enough value is placed on historic buildings." Although registry of a historic building doesn't bar an owner from changing or even destroying it, the designation does encourage respect, Sweeney says.

"Often it's something that will make people stop and think," he says.