Ian advised Jukken Nissho Ltd on the damage and reconstruction of Acton after the Gisborne earthquake and is currently advising the NZHPT on the conservation of the Lyttelton Timeball and Coton’s Cottage in Hororata after the September, 2010, Boxing Day and February 22, 2011, earthquakes.

He has recently written guidelines for the NZHPT on emergency recovery of heritage fabric following earthquake damage. He co-authored the guideline on conservation in seismic zones for the NZHPT with Lou Robinson and has written articles in the New Zealand National Society of Earthquake Engineering Journal as well as the NZHPT magazine and the Dominion Post newspaper on the issues of earthquake strengthening and built heritage.

He has advised on the conservation of many earthquake strengthening projects including:

• Auckland Town Hall
• Wellington Town Hall
• St James Theatre, Wellington
• Shed 22, Wellington
• Shed 13, Wellington
• Railway Social Hall, Wellington
• Maritime Museum, Wellington
• former National Museum and Art Gallery, Wellington
• Embassy Theatre, Wellington
• Government House, Wellington
• Dunedin Lawcourts

The longest running was the Inner City Bypass where he gave specialist advise on heritage buildings and structures affected by the Bypass between 1986 and 2007.

This work involved assessing heritage values of all buildings affected by the Bypass, preparing and giving evidence for several Council and Environment Court hearings, preparing measured drawings and complete photography of each affected heritage building, preparing heritage inventories of each building, designing and documenting conservation interventions for the buildings and carrying out inspections and writing reports during the works.

In 2003-4 Ian advised on the Otaki Te Horo Expressway in preparing assessments of potential heritage buildings affected by the Expressway, consulting relevant authorities and affected parties and writing an
assessment of effects on the Expressway.

Ian carried out similar work in 2004-5 for the Western Corridor Study identifying potential heritage buildings and structures that may be affected by the proposed Corridor.

Ian is currently giving advice on the Transmission Gully, Tunnel Duplication and Wellington Basin Reserve projects.

Projects include;

• heritage audits
• heritage inventories
• heritage provisions in District Plans
• design guidelines
• signage guidelines
• colour guidelines
• and written books on historic buildings

Local authority clients have included the Wellington City Council, Hutt City Council, Petone Borough Council, Palmerston North City Council, Queenstown
Lakes District Council, Nelson City Council, Timaru District Council, Manawatu District Council, Wanganui District Council, Buller District Council, Hastings City Council,
New Plymouth District Council, Christchurch City Council and Rangitikei District Council. 

He has appeared as an expert witness for many of these councils in planning hearings.

It was orignally called His Majesty’s Theatre and was ground breaking in its use of steel framing and layout.

Owned by Chase Corporation in the 1980s, it faced demolition when the property company failed. It was saved by a group of committed individuals and its eventual conservation began with the writing of the conservation plan by Ian Bowman on behalf of the St James Theatre Charitable Trust.

This document guided the conservation work carried out in 1993 and Ian was commissioned as conservation architect to the project with Opus
International Consultants Ltd.

The project won an NZIA Architecture Award.

It’s first major strengthening and refurbishment was carried out between 1993-1997 and began with the writing of a conservation plan for the building by Ian Bowman.

As the only ICCROM trained stone architect conservator in New Zealand Ian was required to carry out a stone by stone condition survey to specify stone repairs as a key part
of the conservation project.

Ian was project manager on behalf of the Auckland City Council for the first stage of strengthenng and conserving the tower and prow, and was then conservation architect with Jasmax Architects
and Town Hall Architects Group.

The project won a BOMA Building Award and a NZIA Architectural Award.