AHST 5110/6110 Thesis Research & Analysis Chamberlaine Beard Transformation Beyond Preservation: Adaptive Reuse of Industrial Architecture
Fig. 3 Perhaps the most debated aspect of adaptive reuse is the cost- is it really cheaper to reuse rather than build? Sherban Cantacuzino says, “Ten years ago, there was evidence that the cost of converting old buildings consistently outstripped the cost of equivalent new work. This tendency appears to have been reversed, and conversions are now fully competitive. In addition, more developers have learnt to appreciate the unquantifiable values of age, character and architectural quality and have discovered that people will pay more to be in an old building where space standards, not to mention architectural quality, are much higher than they would be in an equivalent new building.”15 In today’s market, building materials are becoming more expensive,
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making new
construction a costly endeavor and further encouraging the reuse of existing structure & material.
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Cantacuzino, Re-architecture: Old Buildings/new Uses, 10. Langenbach, Randolph, and Gene Bunnell. A Future from the Past: The Case for Conservation and Reuse of Old Buildings in Industrial Communities. (Washington: U.S. Dept. of Housing and Urban Development, 1978. Print), 59. 16
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