Decision Support Software for Rating Buildings by Historic Significance

摘要

Sixty percent of the buildings owned by the Public Buildings Service (PBS) are classified as historic structures based solely on their age. Some of these buildings are truly historic, while others have little historic significance. In order to manage them effectively, a rating system for evaluating the relative historic importance of the PBS buildings was developed and implemented in the software HIST (Historic Importance Software Tool). HIST is compatible with software currently used by PBS managers to collect detailed data on the historic characteristics of the PBS buildings. It integrates these data into a comprehensive, consistent, and reliable rating system to measure the combined historic significance at several levels of building detail. HIST is used for ranking and analyzing the PBS building inventory, and as the basis for budget planning and allocation. The report documents the rating system and the HIST software.