Guide to Conversion of Traditional Buildings

Part 1: Principles and procedures: 1.0 Introduction

1.1 Traditional buildings in Scotland

Traditional buildings are at the heart of our built environment. The 2024 audit of Scotland’s historic environment estimates that almost 500,000 buildings are of traditional construction, making up around 18% of our homes, 24% of our offices, 33% of our shops and 41% of our public buildings. Traditional buildings are enduring records of the people, skills and communities that shaped them, continuing to enrich Scotland’s identity, sense of place and collective wellbeing today.

The adaptation and re-use of historic buildings helps to safeguard local character, distinctiveness and a sense of place. By supporting regeneration, investment and sustainable development, it ensures that the traditional built environment continues to contribute to Scotland’s economic prosperity, cultural vitality and community wellbeing.

Fundamental to Scotland’s built environment, traditional buildings create character and identity, and their importance cannot be over-emphasised. Yet this finite resource is continually being lost through demolition and unsympathetic alteration. Planning and building standards procedures recognise that buildings must adapt and evolve to remain viable and in use. The sensitive conversion of existing buildings secures their future, makes best use of embodied resources, and ensures that their historic and architectural character is sustained through good conservation practice.

A defining characteristic of traditional buildings is that their construction has evolved over many generations, adapting to Scotland’s climate. Built using vapour-permeable materials, they rely on the natural movement of moisture through the building fabric to remain healthy and resilient. Introducing modern standards such as impermeable interventions can undermine performance and create unintended consequences for both the building and its occupants.

All those involved in the alteration and adaptation of our traditional buildings share a common goal: to keep them in active use and ensure they are passed on to future generations in good condition. This guidance seeks to support those practitioners and verifiers in managing change to these buildings, helping to deliver improvements in safety, comfort, accessibility and energy efficiency whilst safeguarding the traditional characteristics that contribute Scotland’s cultural identity.

1.2 Guide to Conversion of Traditional Buildings

As guidance, the Guide to Conversion of Traditional Buildings is recognised as having the same standing as the Technical Handbooks. Its key purpose is to provide guidance to those converting traditional buildings and assist in creating constructive dialogue between interested parties that will help them to reach agreement and achieve the above aims of giving these buildings a future while preserving their character.

This publication has been produced through a partnership project between Historic Environment Scotland (HES) and Building Standards Division (BSD) of Scottish Government with substantial assistance from practitioners across Scotland and building standards professionals.

This guide is an update to the 2007 publication ‘Guide for Practitioners 6: Conversion of Traditional Buildings’. Its key aim is to assist practitioners and verifiers in reaching agreement on meeting the standards in the conversion of buildings of traditional construction. The guidance recognises that the regulations were primarily written for new build construction, and meeting the standards was affecting the ability of buildings with traditional vapour-permeable construction to dissipate moisture and keep their historic fabric in good health.

The guidance recognises the significant contribution that traditional buildings make to Scotland’s cultural identity, and that an alternative approach may be required on occasions that will allow them to change over time while protecting both the safety of their users and the buildings’ traditional appearance.

Chapter 4 (Building definitions) identifies the principal building types to which this guidance applies, and reasons for their inclusion. Chapter 7 (Understanding traditional buildings) sets out the technical rationale for why an exceptional approach is necessary for these buildings and therefore outlines the remit of this guidance.

Guide to the Conversion of Traditional Buildings aims to promote constructive dialogue where an exceptional approach may have to be taken to meeting regulations. However, because this is general guidance, the dialogue and solutions in it are based on typical rather than exceptional circumstances. Traditional buildings often have unique characteristics that may be a key consideration in discussion, but the advice here is mainly based around the traditional buildings which make up the bulk of buildings likely to be the subject of a warrant application.

1.3 Further reading

• Scottish Government (2019) Scottish House Condition Survey, 2019
• Historic Environment Scotland (2024) Scotland’s Historic Environment Audit (SHEA) 2024