Old is New: Transforming historic buildings for modern uses

August 21, 2024

Join Petaluma Historian Katherine Rinehart at Crooked Goat Brewing, one of Petaluma’s newest breweries, for a presentation on how historic industrial and commercial buildings are being revitalized in cities similar in size to Petaluma in a way that harmonizes the old with the new through adaptive reuse.

San Francisco-based architects Craig Rice and Ram Subramanian will discuss specific hurdles that owners and tenants of historic buildings face when seeking new uses for their properties and how these may be addressed through design, engineering, and construction solutions and others that can be affected by elected officials and the broader community. In the last year, Craig and Ram have collaborated on the topic of office-to-housing conversions, producing the case study: "Why Bad Office Buildings Make Good Housing."

BEFORE: Holm Tractor Equipment

AFTER: Crooked Goat Brewing

Meet our speakers

Craig Rice

Craig Rice is a Studio Director at BLITZ Architecture & Design with expertise in historic preservation and adaptive reuse projects, including Petaluma’s Crooked Goat Brewery.

He is the current Chair of the Oakland Landmarks Preservation Advisory Board and has experience in National, State, and Local preservation platforms. His work spans many generations of historic (and not-yet-historic) building modernizations, each bringing a different mix of the design, technical, code, and philosophical issues that are part of the challenge and reward of historic preservation work.

Ram Subramanian

Ram Subramanian is a Studio Leader at SERA and specializes in all forms of housing. He is an architect with a wide array of skills that complement his design sensibilities. His holistic perspective allows him to see creative and viable solutions even in the most challenging situations for clients and end users that his projects serve.