News from the Presidio
A Conversation with Rick Flaster
Rick Flaster is a Restoration Specialist at the Plant Construction Company. His primary concern is the historical shell of the Presidio building. We talked with him about the special challenges of housing a modern, 21st century museum inside a 19th century building.
Q: Please describe your involvement in the Presidio project.
Q: What's it like to work on these historical buildings in San Francisco?
Q: What are some of the typical problems that arise when you try to restore historical buildings for a new purpose?
Q: When looking at the Presidio, where would you shift that emphasis?
Q: To what extent will the Presidio façade be in harmony with the surrounding buildings?
Q: Are you restoring what is there or are you also replacing window frames, brick, etc.?
Q: Please describe your involvement in the Presidio project.
Flaster:
I have a special relationship with Plant, in a way. I've been working for Plant for 20 years now and for about the last eight, I've been working part-time, mostly doing façade restorations of historic buildings. So those are the projects I work on. Prior to that, I did all the work of a basic project manager which was running the jobs, making sure it all happened. I have the luxury and the privilege of just working part-time and working on a very specific type of renovation.
Q: What's it like to work on these historical buildings in San Francisco?
Flaster:
It's wonderful. You may have heard other people talk about some of our other projects such as the Ferry Building and the Flood Building, the Theological Seminary up in San Anselmo. I mean they are just very enjoyable projects to work on. You feel like you're restoring a legacy that needs to remain for people to continue to see and, you know, it's obviously what we're doing in the Presidio with the Disney project. Instead of…we're adaptively reusing a building that was totally meant for something else and putting it to a totally different use and I think it's exciting. It's nice to be able to walk by a project and look at it five years later, 10 years later, and say "I worked on that. I did that." It's a good feeling.
Q: What are some of the typical problems that arise when you try to restore historical buildings for a new purpose?
Flaster:
You know really, a lot of it comes down to the budget. There are some very specific types of guidelines that are held out by the Secretary of Interior. It's called the Secretary of Interior Standards. They pretty much lay out what you can and can't do, materials you can and can't use, but there's a lot of push and pull between those standards and say, a client's budget. Then there's the issue of -- we have this old window and do we want it to look brand new. Do we want it to look like an old window but yet it is very serviceable? It's a fine line. It varies from client to client and from project to project.
Q: When looking at the Presidio, where would you shift that emphasis?
Flaster:
I think they're walking a good middle ground. They’re not expecting something to look pristine. There's acknowledgement that the way the Army maintained the buildings; we joke about the Private that they had painting these windows obviously had never held a paintbrush before because there is paint all over the brick. And they're making choices whereas the exterior façade right at the front where there's going to be a lot of public presence, we're spending more time and effort there than say, on the side of the buildings or in areas that are going to be less visually apparent.
The people at the Presidio are very protective of their properties, as they should be. And the people at the (Presidio) Trust are understanding but they also want to maintain as much of the historic fabric, as it's referred to, as possible.
Q: To what extent will the Presidio façade be in harmony with the surrounding buildings?
Flaster:
Oh, it has to be. One of the interesting things we're doing right now is we're setting the standard for certain details for the other buildings which are basically, they're brothers and sisters–they all look alike. And certain details like roofing and gutters, and the porches and the railings, those are all things that are going to have to be replicated on the other buildings. So there is that consistent look and it all plays together. We've had to ask the people, there's a woman at the Trust that we work with, that when we come up against this, it's like, "Christina, this is going to be something that you're going to want to look at because you're going to have to do it on all the other buildings." So, there is a working relationship relative to that and it's very important that we're working together as a cohesive bunch.
Q: Are you restoring what is there or are you also replacing window frames, brick, etc.?
Flaster:
We're restoring what is there. The brick that we're using to make repairs we've been able to salvage from the building itself because there was a lot of demolition that was done. Windows that are beyond serviceability are replaced but they are replaced to match the existing windows. That's kind of the bulk of it. I mean, there are materials that allow us to patch brick and to patch sandstone but for the most part, the buildings are in pretty good shape on the outside -- the envelope itself. They need some help, they need some TLC (tender loving care) and they're getting it.
Thank you!
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