Oakland’s Creative Growth Art Center was converted from an auto shop into a studio for artists with disabilities; Buffalo’s Northland Workforce Training Center was a former factory that became a site for job training and education; and in Pittsburgh, a Masonic temple became a space for City of Asylum, a nonprofit that supports writers who are threatened in their own countries.
Source: Adaptive reuse projects are happening across the country. Here are som
Drawing inspiration from the history of this remarkable piece of infrastructure, the project will restore and preserve the historical pieces that have been rooted there for over 160 years, which includes the original Beaux-Arts masonry detailing and terracotta ornamentation of the exterior, the wood-framed windows, interior decorative plaster work, the double height main lobby and 106-year old restored marble stone staircase, elevator cores, as well as the double loaded corridor and terrazzo flooring of the
Source: Timothy Soar
In reworking 160 Old Street, Islington, new brick and glass cladding was added but the essential structure was largely retained
To meet the UK’s net zero carbon targets, an increasing number of urban projects are likely to repurpose buildings that already exist rather than replace them with new ones.
Source: Sustainability: Net zero carbon | Features | Building
The Vault Office tenants enjoy ground-floor retail amenities.
The Brookings Institute forecasts that 82 billion square feet of existing space in the United States will be demolished and replaced between 2005 and 2030 – roughly one-quarter of today’s existing building stock. Further, as noted by the American Institute of Architects in its recent statement on climate action, in the U.S. alone nearly 40% of greenhouse gas emissions can be attributed to carbon produced by buildings during construction and everyday operations. Embodied carbon from construction represents a
Source: Redeveloping, Repositioning Existing Assets for a New Generation – Colorado Real Estate Journal
The farmhouse-inspired kitchen employs tractor seats repurposed as bar stools, floating cabinets, and exposed brick.
Upstairs, the architectural salvage continues in the open-concept living areas, with repurposed light fixtures, a tin accent wall, and galvanized buckets for sinks. The farmhouse-inspired kitchen boasts tractor seats as bar stools.
Source: Barn house for sale in Nebraska has horse stalls for bedrooms – Curbed
Silos after the transformation (Right) The metal silos that previously served as storage units.
The silhouette of these metal silos offers contrast to the rigid geometry of the building and hence shows up as a sculptural insert.
The Modern House
Inside, the apartments embrace their loft heritage with the requisite modern-meets-industrial touches.
Source: Minimalist loft homes built atop London button factory – Curbed
An illustration of how the new school could look once finished.
Veidekke
“Whatever you are going to construct, from an environmental perspective, your number one priority is to ensure your designers are focused on enabling you to build something that is energy efficient, uses materials that have a low embodied carbon and can be easily maintained, re-purposed and ultimately, after a long and useful lifetime, be recycled,” Dominic Burbridge, associate director of the Carbon Trust, said in a statement sent to CNBC.com.
Source: Innovation and tech are transforming the buildings we learn in
Courtesy Mikael Lundblad
“I think this is one of the last buildings from that era,” says Sean O’Connor, the general manager and partner of KEX Portland. “So it’s nice to be able to preserve the original history and character of that Eastside industrial area.”
Source: A Historic Portland Building Turns Over a New Leaf—as a Stylish Hostel – Metropolis
The Go Place Spa has set up shop in the former Cineplex Odeon First Markham Place in suburban Toronto. GO PLACE SPA
Creative adaptations of former cinemas in Canada include churches, drug stores and cannabis dispensaries.
Source: What happens to cinemas in a streaming world? – The Globe and Mail
The former Ottawa Street Power Station in Lansing, Michgian, stopped producing power in 1992 and finally reopened in 2011 as the headquarters for an insurance company, the Accident Fund, now called the AF Group.
“One of the really cool things about retired coal-fired plants is they have built-in infrastructure and components that can be repurposed for new industry,” said John Kowalik, director of marketing and public relations for Environmental Liability Transfer. “Like access to rail, ports and waterways … and good highway transportation. Typically the grids can be reused for another purpose too, like solar or wind. There’s a direct grid connection at the power plant.”
Source: Coal-fired power plants finding new uses as data centers, clean energy hubs | Energy News Network
Photo: The Architectural Team’s Bob Verrier has designed more than 50 award-winning historic buildings and preserved the architectural heritage of hundreds of historic structures across the country.
“The idea of restoring and bringing a building back to usefulness is very rewarding,” he says. “A new building is a new building, but restoring a historic building, it gives more energy. It’s like taking something that’s not being used, something that was very functional at one time, and now you bring it back to life. That’s what you’re doing: breathing new life into old bones.”
Source: Bob Verrier Champions Historic Renovation and Adaptive Reuse
Buildings that previously housed banks tend to be popular as they already have secure structures that comply with the cannabis industry’s unique security provisions – including vaults, safes, blocked-off areas and advanced security systems – in turn requiring less of an investment from the operator to implement these requirements.
Source: Adaptive Reuse is the Future of Cannabis Retail | GlobeSt
55 Southbank Boulevard by Bates Smart. Image: Hume Partners Property
Bates Smart designed a 10 storey structure made from engineered timber that sits top of an existing office building in Melbourne’s Southbank. The Adina Apartment Hotel Melbourne Southbank is set to open later in 2020.
Source: Tallest timber adaptive reuse building set to open | ArchitectureAU
The living room of Cathy Ehrler and Donald Thurman’s converted warehouse home is light and open, with high ceilings and windows lining the walls.
“I’m really into reuse and recycling — and I’ve been that way all my life — and one of the reasons that I loved this space is that we are reusing space in an old building,” said Cathy, “and we used as much as the original as possible.”
“It requires a fundamental shift in our attitude to materials.”
Source: What if we never demolished another building? | News | Archinect
The Eberly occupies a 1970s brick building that formerly housed a print shop.
Source: Eclectic decor fills Eberly restaurant and tavern in central Austin
PUSH Buffalo Executive Director Rahwa Ghirmatzion, center, with PUSH members and community advocates Luz Velez, left, and Providencia Carrion at the Wash Project. (Derek Gee/Buffalo News)
She now oversees the organization’s programs and operations, which include housing construction, solar installation, job training and a youth center, in addition to advocacy efforts. PUSH employs 40, and has renovated more than 100 homes in the past seven years.
Source: Meet the ‘Renovators’: These people are breathing new life into Buffalo’s past – The Buffalo News
ZGF partnered with Google to transform the landmark Spruce Goose Hangar in Playa Vista, California. A 450,000+ SF, four-level “building-within-a-building” was developed inside the seven-story, 750-foot-long historic wooden structure. Built by Howard Hughes in 1943 for the construction of the Hercules IV airplane (aka the “Spruce Goose”), the hangar now comprises office, meeting, food service and event spaces, and employee amenity spaces.
Source: Google, Spruce Goose | ZGF
Courtesy Hotel Can Ferrereta
Found on Mallorca’s south-east coast, this 17th-century building will comprise 32 rooms, a spa with hammam and indoor pool. Can Ferrereta is inspired by the typical Spanish summer house: its light and airy design will champion original wooden beams, a cream palette and stone
Photography: Nigel Young
Apple took on yet another renovation of a historically significant building in 2019, converting Washington DC’s first public library into a new flagship store. The restoration of the 116-year-old Carnegie Library by Foster + Partners took two years and involved installing a new skylight above a central plaza used for hosting events.
Source: The most innovative adaptive reuse projects of 2019 – The Spaces
For the architecture firm Schaum/Shieh, reuse necessarily means embracing the “background buildings” found throughout American suburbs, like the strip mall. In Houston, Schaum/Shieh retrofitted a midcentury washateria into a series of storefronts, while taking pains to highlight the craftsmanship of the original build. Courtesy Peter Molick
The building sector accounts for about a third of global fuel consumption, but its systematic energetic impact may be still greater. Because we sense the glow and hum of the machines around us, because we are accustomed to paying monthly energy bills and encouraged by the idea that adjusting the thermostat saves money—and, somehow, the planet—we may be more sensitive to running costs than to embodied energy. But, as Moe puts it in that interview, “that’s not really dealing with energy, that’s dealing with the fuel efficiency of a building, which is important, but missing the big picture.”
Source: A New Idea in Architecture? No New Buildings – Metropolis
While the main nave of the church serves as an impromptu auditorium, it’s ambulatory alcoves are fitted out as stationary lounges. (Slava Balbek)
Salvaging and restoring the historic features of the listed Our Lady of Guadalupe church, the firm implemented a scheme that makes good use of its dramatic nave and ambulatory alcoves. While the former plays host to a moveable seating and table system, the latter serves a series of stationary lounges. Together, they set the stage for anything from film-screenings to hackathons.
Source: Balbek Bureau converts a San Francisco church into a startup incubator – Archpaper.com
Matt Bolen of Waterloo-based Edge Architects in front of the century-old Huck Glove factory before construction began.
PETER LEE
“Call it a new generation that doesn’t necessarily place the same value on suburban, shiny new things,” he says, explaining that younger employees want to live and work in communities with a history. “The great thing about these older buildings is they have a story that people can connect to.”
Source: Century-old glove factory to anchor new, state-of-the-art centre – The Globe and Mail
The new Runway Rink at the TWA Hotel allows guests to skate on the tarmac around the hotel’s 1958 Lockheed Constellation Connie airplane, a vintage airliner which has been converted into a cocktail lounge.
Source: Ice Skate Next to a Vintage Airliner on the Tarmac at NYC’s TWA Hotel – Untapped New York
The project is an ode to the industrial and cultural heritage of Amsterdam and brings to light the importance of water to the area. The suites, spread all throughout the city, are a love letter to Amsterdam architecture, from Amsterdam School to Modernism.
Source: These adaptive reuse hotel suites in Amsterdam are built inside old bridge houses
The tropical game room features shuffle board, bumper pool, and foosball. Images courtesy of Cedar Street
“Mid-century modernism was a no-brainer as the source of inspiration for design,” Fritz tells Curbed. “Tiki lounges and mid-century go hand in hand. There was a sort of obsession with tropical environments in Hollywood movies of the era, and Hawaii became a state at the end of the era, forever enmeshing American and Polynesian culture.”
Source: Uptown office building reborn as midcentury-inspired apartments – Curbed Chicago
Photograph by Lara Swimmer
American firm Lever Architecture used weathering steel and original timber in the adaptive reuse of two factories built over 70 years ago for a hay-baler manufacturer.
Source: Lever Architecture turns Portland factories into creative workspace
Courtesy of Culturespaces
The structure was first operational between 1941 and 1943, used by the Germans to house U-boats. The converted bunker has already hosted temporary shows and concerts, but now four of its sheds will become permanent exhibition spaces.
Source: Bordeaux’s WWII submarine base will become the world’s biggest digital art centre – The Spaces
The property still looks like an industrial site from far away, but every square inch has been repurposed for recreation.
The Idea File, staff writers Jim and Deb Fallows explore the phenomenon of the dead mall, and its emerging afterlife.
Side view of part of the old Banks school. Photo via Jeff E. Newman
In plain English, the City’s looking for just the right developer who can buy the property as is and develop it into something fabulous.
Located in a rural area in Quebec, the old barn was in near ruins until the Montreal-based firm was hired to convert it into a secondary family home. Thankfully, instead of bulldozing the beautiful old building to the ground, the studio managed to salvage nearly every single material to reuse in the new design.
Source: Decrepit barn in Quebec was converted into stunning modern design by salvaging old materials
Nick Glimenakis
The Clover Hill Foundry is a house with history. Originally built in the late 19th century, the interconnected brick buildings in Somers, New York, were first used as the hub for an ore mining operation. Later in the 1940s, three artists bought the dilapidated buildings, renovating them into standalone homes for their families.
Source: Upstate NY weekend home stunningly renovated from former ore foundry – Curbed
BOB WILLIAMS FOR THE INQUIRER
Tara Dugan at her shop, worKS.
Tara Dugan is an exception. In 2016, while searching for a building to open a boutique, she noticed an empty, 70-year-old gas station on a lightly traversed road in Kennett Square, a borough of just over 6,100 people. She saw the potential in an unloved structure, she said, as did three women who repurposed a Sunoco gas station in Malvern to serve gourmet fare.
Source: Ruthlessly competitive fuel market creates closed-station blight — and opportunity for reuse
Manzanita celebrates the uniqueness of CARTM and its reuse /recycle leadership and the fact that the City was the first coastal community to ban the use of plastic bags all in the name of environmental stewardship. Reusing building materials and diverting demolition materials from a landfill all contribute to LEED points which are not available for new construction so why did the City decide to not give citizens the opportunity to even have this discussion and prevent approximately 500 dump truck loads of building material from being hauled to the landfill?
Source: OP/ED: You never know what you got till it’s gone. – Tillamook County Pioneer
The Graham, Anderson, Probst and White-designed building occupies a high-profile site along the Chicago River. Getty Images/iStockphoto
“The power house could have a tremendous future if we encourage something creative and clever,” Miller explains. “It takes imagination and a sensitive approach to rethink these kinds of buildings. London’s Tate Modern museum is in a former power house that sat empty for years. The Union Station property isn’t on that same scale, but it’s still an important and rare example of Art Moderne architecture in Chicago.”
Source: Chicago Union Station’s iconic power house faces unclear future – Curbed Chicago
The thoughtful restoration and adaptive reuse of the historic structure features 57 oversized, modern lofts market-rate units – boasting more than 280, 8-foot by 10-foot windows to provide each unit with expansive views and an abundance of natural light – of which 39 of the units are affordable.
Source: Adaptive Reuse and Restoration of a Historic Building Features 57 Modern Lofts
Above: Lincoln Union, built in 1970, is located at 475 E. Lincoln St. in the Phoenix warehouse district and was a former refrigerated distribution center owned by Pearce Beverage Co., which was the first Coors distributor in the Valley.
Adaptive reuse is making a big impact on commercial real estate and likely will for several years to come. According to the Urban Land Institute’s Emerging Trends in Real Estate (2019), the repurposing trend is likely to continue over the next decade. As real estate professionals, we had better be prepared to adapt.
Source: Here’s how adaptive reuse has impacted Valley real estate | AZ Big Media
COURTESY EXPENSIFY
“It’s an incredible opportunity for not only historic preservation, but also adaptive reuse,” says Atwood. The Portland, Oregon, office of fintech platform Expensify is housed in the 100-year-old First National Bank. There’s no denying that it’s a 21st-century office, but many of the original design elements remain intact.
Stan Bullard
Once the home of a leading national maker of horse blankets, the former National Blanket Building on Cleveland’s West Side could be repurposed as affordably priced apartments for families.
“We’re afraid bricks may fall from it,” he said of the three-story factory dating from 1890 that was expanded until it covers a city block. He’s excited, though, because plans to renovate it to new use are taking shape. “It will mean a lot for the neighborhood in terms of morale because it’s the largest building here and it’s been vacant so long,” León said, “in addition to the economic benefit of it being put back into use.”
Source: Rehab/reuse project is warming up for old blanket factory
K.C. Conway offered the keynote speech at the 15th Anniversary of the Puerto Rico Chapter of the CCIM Institute celebrated in La Concha Hotel in San Juan. >Courtesy CCIM
From the start, Conway pointed out that the OZ and the adaptive reuse of old and unused structures could lead to a much-needed investment push that could help the U.S. territory find its way out of recession.
Source: A Pathway to Puerto Rico’s Recovery | Business | theweeklyjournal.com
“What we hadn’t planned on was the opportunity to not only create a dream space, but to participate in preserving a former church that may have otherwise been knocked down to make way for more heinous condo boxes,” says Mike. For the project, he also won the Grand Jury Award for Adaptive Reuse of an existing building by the Preservation Alliance for Greater Philadelphia.
Source: See How This Historic Church Got Its Second Life as a Tattoo Shop | Architectural Digest
The grain elevator — the last in the county — remains, and an old scale serves as the front patio, Wild Goose really shines by continuing to connect rural residents through coffee and food.
Source: The best examples of adaptive reuse in Colorado from restaurants to bars
There are barn conversions, and then there’s Noble Barn – a redbrick dairy shed that raises the bar on adaptive reuse in the UK’s Berkshire.
Source: Inside a converted Arts & Crafts barn in the Berkshire countryside – The Spaces
Jami Lloyd, Architectural Designer and A M King Blog Author
Scarcity of land; ample building inventory; reinvention of retail; rising construction costs; labor challenges; new regulations; environmental and schedule benefits; and resource-intensive procurement associated with virgin materials builds a strong case for adaptive reuse.
Source: An Adaptive Reuse Solution in Today’s Overbuilt Environment – GroundBreak Carolinas
Now open, Rust and Shine Unique Shopps, 600 Cemetery Street, Williamsport. Carrie Pauling
Rust and Shine is a delightful and surprising collection of vendor shops in 12,000 square feet of space in the former Raytown factory building attached to the Pajama Factory in Williamsport’s west end.
Source: Rust and Shine: New retail shopping venue in Williamsport | Business | northcentralpa.com
The 21c Museum Hotel in Durham.
Photo by Chris Cooper. Image courtesy of 21c Museum Hotels.
MICHAEL PRONZATO / STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
Though still months away from being heard — or even enacted — Squilla’s bills mark significant progress for Philadelphia, which, despite having the second-most number of buildings constructed before 1945 in the U.S., has struggled to encourage developers to restore old and interesting buildings.
Source: Councilman Squilla introduces bills to make it easier to reuse Philadelphia’s historic buildings
Built in 1922, the former Agudas Achim Synagogue in Uptown stopped operating as a religious institution in 2008 — a decade later, it was renovated and turned into chic residential housing units. Synagogue Flats opened in March 2019.- Original Credit: Flats (Flats)
The perks of living in a former religious institution range from the aesthetics to the memorable moments. Currey said she still bumps into people who either went to church at her property as kids or attended weddings there.