Hi Jim,

You have introduced the term "rehabilitation" into the discussion and I wonder if this has the same meaning (to you) as "refurbishment" (to me)? I am adding this to the list.

"Refurbishment" is a term used mainly by commercial property developers when they take on existing office blocks or old warehouses and modernise same for commercial gain not necessarily taking great care to conserve all features of a building.

I watched a TV programme last night about how a Hugenot church built in brick lane in London was first transformed into a Jewish Synagogue and then later converted into a Muslim Mosque. In the latter change of use all of the ornate Jewish internal woodwork including seats, panelling and dividers was ripped out and junked because Muslims have no need for this in their places of worship. Was this a case of Refurbishment, Rehabilitation or demolition ?

I agree with your point about buildings being best preserved by poor people simply because they don't have loads of money with which they can indulge their flights of fancy. When I was undertaking research for my dissertation I examined about 90 vernacular mainly timber framed houses and both quantified and catagorised changes that had been made over the past 117 years. In nearly all cases the biggest changes made were driven by an excess of available money. One does have to recognise that this form of preservation does carry with it a higher risk of incurring delapidation in the medium to longer term.

The list now reads :-

Conservation, Preservation, Restoration, Refurbishment, Rehabilitation, Maintenance, Repair, Fix, Replacement, Delapidate, Demolish, Salvage, Reconstruction, Replicataton, Reuse, Conversion (Adaptive Reuse), Change, Alter.

Regards

Ken Hume