ARCHIeSTUDIO
Design and Architecture - Hands On
Archiestudio
Aradhana, 151 Priyadarsini Nagar
P. O. Ayyanthole
Thrissur, Kerala 680003
India
ph: +91 487 2381446
alt: +91 9447188446
archiest
Adaptive Reuse - Step by Step
Adaptive reuse is conventionally defined as “the process of adapting old structures for new purposes.” Adaptive reuse refers to the process of reusing an old site or building for a purpose other than which it was built or designed for. Adaptive reuse done is to prolong the period from cradle-to-grave for a building by retaining all or most of the structural system and as much as possible of other elements of the built form.
From simple redecoration to major retrofit or reconstruction refurbishment take many forms. Retrofit is the process undertaken when the buildings are in good condition but the services and technology within them have become outdated. Through re-design buildings can be converted to a new purpose altogether if a particular function is no longer relevant or required.
The advantages of rehabilitating older buildings over demolition and construction of new space be generally categorised as economic, environmental and social benefits.
Economic Benefits:
Unless extensive structural reconstruction is required, rehabilitated space can be created more quickly than new space. Rehabilitation typically takes half to three-quarters of the time necessary to demolish and reconstruct the same floor area. This shorter development period reduces the cost of financing and the effect of inflation on construction costs, and reduces expenses on finding temporary accommodation.
Apart from saving of time, the cost of converting a building is generally less than new construction because many of the building elements already exist. The reuse of structural elements is itself a significant saving in terms of time and money.
Most old buildings do not comply with regulations pertaining to fire safety and related protective measures. A thorough survey of any old building up for restoration should be undertaken to confirm the structural and constructional quality, and compliance with prevailing building regulations.
Environmental Benefits:
Rehabilitation of buildings means recycling of materials and reuse of structural elements which has great environmental benefits, specially in the form of less waste that pollutes or is used as landfill and also results in cost advantages to the owner. Old buildings most of the times were constructed using a variety of quality longer lasting materials such as stone, timber etc as compared to modern materials.
Old buildings usually have heavily constructed external envelope which can reduce energy consumption in heating and cooling and are capable of delivering long-term operational efficiencies if adapted with modern technologies.
Social Benefits:
Old buildings tend to add character to streetscapes, providing a landmark status. Their often advantageous locations in city centres, close to transport hubs make reuse more viable because of their intrinsic heritage values, adding to a sense of community, often appreciated as comfortable working environments by occupants.
Presence of vacant or derelict buildings in a locality are potential reason for crime and unsocial behaviour. Their adaptive reuse adds vibrancy to communities and raises living standards through added investment and revitalisation.
There are clear economic, environmental and social benefits that can make adaptive reuse option attractive to developers. Adaptive reuse poses quite difficult challenges for designers by way of a new approach called re-design of the existing. Concessions can be introduced as incentives for pursuing adaptive reuse of buildings and new policy framework created for changing the functional classification of a building under adaptive reuse.
Adaptive reuse can be very dramatic as is seen in some examples of conversion of unused factories and mills into shopping malls and public spaces.
Potential of Adaptive Reuse:
Owner of property, architects, developers, politicians and society at large are stakeholders in adaptive reuse and their involvement is critical and finding a balance between their interests is important. Hence it is with everybody’s involvement that one can identify the potential of adaptive reuse of a property.
The energy and waste disposal costs are crucial when making decisions about whether to reuse a building or to demolish and rebuild. These are strong incentives for a transition to more sustainable energy use, less profligate use of new materials, and better and longer use of existing building stock.
Refurbishment of buildings is a greater employment generator than new construction. Refurbishment generates 25% more employment than new building construction per square metre of floor space as a result of the typical labour intensive activities involved in renovation and also promotes continuity of some vanishing craft oriented skills of building industry
Design professionals can study and create data bank of buildings and create an evaluation tool for estimating the useful life of buildings and use their understanding of redevelopment analysis and renovation to offer a greater and more valuable service to their clients. Once useful life is reliably determined, it can be compared with both the building’s current age and its estimated maximum physical life to determine the potential for adaptive reuse.
Buildings have a physical life and useful life. Buildings that have a large time period between useful and physical life should be favoured, while those with a small time period between current age and physical life should not. Where useful life is close to current building age, the decision to look at adaptive reuse options should be imminent. By identifying buildings suitable for adaptive reuse, creating a data bank and ranking them according to their real potential to communities, a society can target their resources better and make more substantial contributions to a country’s net worth of built forms.
Architect's Role:
• In the name of development is it justifiable that we demolish the old and build anew in its place?
• If we can find adaptive reuse for all our old structures from time to time, we will save tremendous amount of energy and resources and produce less wastage.
• We will also preserve our past for the sake of posterity to know and appreciate.
Prevention of demolition is the most favoured option to minimise waste, save energy and continue to preserve our cultural achievements in the form of buildings for the posterity.
To the well known 3Rs of Recycle-Reduce-Reuse, it is time architects added an R... of Re-Design... to re-design old derelict buildings for adaptive re-use.
The action plan could be as follows:
Check out some of the following projects:
Archiestudio
Aradhana, 151 Priyadarsini Nagar
P. O. Ayyanthole
Thrissur, Kerala 680003
India
ph: +91 487 2381446
alt: +91 9447188446
archiest