Heritage Assessment
Assessment of heritage significance is the foundation for all good heritage management. Competent assessment requires high-level skills in analysing documentary and physical evidence, the careful application of assessment criteria and knowledge of comparative and contextual information.
GML specialises in heritage assessments that take us from around the corner to as far as Antarctica, and range in subject from single artefacts to large collections of buildings in vast cultural landscapes and world heritage places.
Individual Buildings
GML’s wide-ranging experience in providing assessments of individual buildings – both residential and commercial – means that our assessments offer a detailed appraisal of the relative value of the building’s fabric, interior spaces and components.
Precincts and Complex Sites
Assessments of complex sites such as hospitals, defence sites and precincts of urban centres are one of the firm’s core activities. GML has experience in developing methodologies tailored for assessing the relative significance of precincts and complex sites and their individual components in a concise and effective format.
Curtilages
Assessments of significance of a heritage place must take into consideration the retention of an appropriate curtilage and setting. The curtilage is the surrounding land that is part of the heritage value of a place; extended settings can include important views and vistas.
GML has extensive experience in assessing curtilages and in defining the qualities that make up a heritage setting in relation to subdivisions and new development.
Industrial Sites & Machinery
Urban and rural industrial sites have played an important part in Australia’s history. While not always beautiful, these sites retain evidence of past technologies and processes. Fixed fittings, movable machinery and artefacts can also be important.
GML is respected as a pre-eminent authority in the area of industrial heritage with particular expertise in assisting the adaptive re-use of former industrial sites, while retaining and interpreting core aspects of their heritage value.
Cultural Landscapes
Landscapes that have been modified by human activity are called Cultural Landscapes. They are usually seen to have aesthetic values and demonstrate different periods and types of landuse, some of which are not easily recognisable.
GML’s specialist team documents, assesses and advises on the management of these dynamic landscapes to allow for future use while retaining the characteristics that define their significance.
Social Significance
One of the most powerful expressions of heritage significance is that of social value, embodying the degree of esteem that a contemporary community holds for special places.
Unravelling this intangible aspect of heritage can be challenging, but it is critical to good decision making and to managing projects where community expectations are undefined.
We utilise specifically-designed methodologies that best suit the particular project circumstances: meetings, surveys, visits and interviews.
Movable Heritage
Movable Heritage is a term used to describe natural or manufactured objects of significance. Movable Heritage may include the contents of everyday houses, factories and workplaces, large machines, buses, boats and transport items, as well as antiques, fossils and archives.
GML provides movable heritage identification, assessment, management, policy development and interpretation. We specialise in industrial and transport related movable heritage and the large and diverse artefact and documentary collections of government agencies.
Historical Research and Oral History
Historical research is an essential basis for understanding significance. GML understands the importance of investigating the history of a place or item before heritage or planning decisions are made, so that the development and context is clearly known.
Our professional historians carry out research through the examination of primary and secondary sources, documents or photographs held in archives, libraries, museums and private collections. Oral history interviews are also carried out when necessary to gain a different perspective and clearer understanding of a place’s usage and significance.