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Continuing our weekly 'Explainer' series, we return with an overview of another technical design and construction term via our sister site, SkyriseCities.com. This week, an explanation of 'façadism' offers insight into a term—and a phenomenon—that's become very common in our city in recent years.
As parking lots and vacant properties quickly vanish from the downtown cores of major global cities, property developers are increasingly being forced to look at plots of land that are already occupied by existing structures. Some of these structures may be historic in nature, or feature a built form in keeping with the general urban fabric of the neighbourhood. While municipalities often try to maintain these structures wherever possible, their preservation may prove to be financially impractical and unworkable for the developer and their plans for the site. In an attempt to assuage heritage preservationists, developers may institute a practice known as 'facadism', which refers to the preservation of only the facade of a building while a new erection is constructed behind and above it.
The rest of the story is available at SkyriseCities.com, linked here.
