INTRODUCTION

Buildings in the mid-twentieth century were conceived within a bubble of expectation of boundless energy, a situation that was short-lived, and a mindset set that is hard to comprehend these days. Nowadays, it is easy to understand that the thermally flimsy products of this era require some dramatic invention—what we often call a “deep energy retrofit” (DER)—and there is an emerging set of standard responses to such envelope enhancement. But some of these buildings have high architectural significance, and deserve a more design-oriented solution than simply wrapping them in an insulative swaddle. This is the story of one such building.