Toolkit for Owners of a Modern House

Different countries have different levels of protection for modern buildings, as well as different regulations and planning systems, but wherever your modern house is located, some know-how is universally applicable. In addition, much can be learned from what has happened elsewhere.

Perhaps you bought a modern house because of your interest in design, or maybe you've inherited a house (possibly from relatives who built it), or are part of a local group which has come together to try to save a house - whatever the circumstances, if you want to secure its future, this is a great place to start.

We have arranged the material into four sections:

1. Establish and Understand Significance: The first section will help you to work out why your house is special and how to tell its story. If it’s not already protected by your country’s preservation legislation, this section will help you nominate it for a historic register or the equivalent.

2. Practical Challenges and Material Issues will help you look after the physical fabric of your house with regular maintenance and sensitive upgrading or alterations. It will encourage you to look ahead to make long-term plans for conservation which acknowledge the challenges of the costs of caring for a historic building, the impact of development pressures and climate change and (more positively) the growing appreciation of modern heritage.

3. Case Studies provides examples of various types of projects carried out by homeowners and other small groups of concerned individuals. It also indicates which types of organization can help with this.

4. Additional resources contains a survey of the national and regional organizations involved in heritage conservation, journals and other sources of information.