Re/Verb - Architecture of Re-use

RE / VERB Architecture of Re-use

“Time present and time past Are both perhaps present in time future And time future contained in time past...”

TS Elliot.

RE / VERB Architecture of Re-use Re-generation Re-imagine Re-think Re-new Re-cycle Re-frame

MANIFIESTO

By Laura Arboleda-Franco

Architecture of Re-use

Project B Everyday is Like Sunday 08

Project A Incision Nantou City Guesthouse

12 Why demolition matters

09 The densifying city

17 Project D - M26 réhabilitation et extension

14 Project C - San Gimignano Lichtenberg

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How you build matters

18 Future scenarios and Global alignment

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Project E - 530 Dwellings 21 The specific case of Medellín 22 Project F – Arts and crafts park

Project G – Museum of modern art expansion

Glossary

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Conclusion

Images List

26 Project H - Les Balés C De La B

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30 Reference List

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Architecture of Re-use

Many times, in architecture school, we are asked to design a completely new building that, to be coherent with the moment we live in, must be sustainable.

This often feels like a conundrum, students start to struggle with the building’s orientation, material selection and the pre-existing nature of the site to accomplish the assigned task without questioning if a new building is completely necessary after revaluating the site and the surroundings for potential reuse and transformation.

French Architect, Anne Lacaton was asked on an interview if sometimes she would prefer to demolish the existing and start “tabula rasa”, as not all new architecture is good architecture neither is the old one, but her answer was clear “we always start to look at things positively, we always start looking for the good. Always add.” (Lacaton, 2018) This manifesto proposes that not only sometimes the best answer to solve a project is not a new building at all but is always best to read the city and find existing buildings that present an opportunity for a new activity to take place, new events to happen, like many offices left empty by the new “work from home” culture or warehouses once occupied by manufacturing that now occurs on the outskirts of the city, this residual, massive spaces could be reimagined as housing, educational institutions or cultural centres depending on the community’s needs.

Architecture schools and firms have proposed to design like this for decades, encouraging the new build as aspirational with sustainability as and added value instead of a starting point. Fortunately, this is being reframed, the success of architecture offices like “Lacaton & Vassal” has put the spotlight in adaptative reuse like never before incorporating the conscious choice to preserve the past, beyond heritage conservation to the academic studio and architectural practice proposals. Adaptative reuse is and approach that is often circumstantial, but what if it was the default mindset? Specially in a context of renovation like the one many post-industrial cities are undergoing.

Construction is occurring at a fast pace, and we architects have a choice. Do we demolish and construct a new building, or do we reappropriate and make the most of what’s already there?

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Project A - Incision Nantou City Guesthouse Location: Shenzhen, China Year: 2021 Architects: Neri & Hu Former use: Housing Current use: Hotel boutique Exposing the history to insert the new

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TUDIO 37 he Precedent

Incision | Nantou City Guesthouse Neri&Hu Design and Research Office

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Laura Arboleda Franco - 1301970

The densifying city

Universally accepted ideas are not necessarily true, and although in the CIAM (Congrès Internationaux d’Architecture Moderne, 1928-1959) those who exposed and defended the dispersed city were great architects such as LeCorbusier, Mies van der Rohe and Walter Gropius, the damage that the sprawl has caused to cities is undeniable. Some European cities were reconstructed following the model where land uses are segregated, and priority is given to traveling by private car, taking care of the problems they faced in the post-war period such as lack of hygiene, lack of housing, mobility, and fear of a new war (Rueda, 1997).

the public budget (Stiphout, 2013), the CBD area of a city produces way more income in taxes than what it takes to maintain its infrastructure due to the high occupancy per square meter, but the suburbs take each time more infrastructure, demanding more and more energy, time, and money that only benefits a few. This paradigm needs to be replaced.

Urban planning is a silent ally to this event, but some cities are choosing to go a different way, following design parameters that think in the general wellbeing instead of seeing the cities as a source of profits. Danish architect Jan Gehl has been advocating for the rewiring of our cities in to compact and diverse ones (Gehl, 2013), that grow slowly, where the use of a car is minimum, and the available land is used to the maximum to avoid new intrusions in delicate ecosystems.

This paradigms persist today, most of the new projects in the city are defined by stakeholders and developers pushing the city boundaries further and further into nature getting as a result a sprawling city that is not sustainable for the environment and

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Project B - Everyday is Like Sunday Location: Brussels, Belgium Year: 2015 Architects: DOGMA Former use: Offices Proposed use: Dwelling Rethinking the modernist cities and towers PLAN

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Why demolition matters

Many layers of the urban fabric are being impacted by demolition, there is more to the city than what we see in the surface, the world underground also must be removed and in most cases the consequences are more negative than positive, the outcomes are complex and inseparably entangled from people’s lives.

demolishing, and building again are in fact activities that create a loop dynamic that moves money, people, and energy but these resources could be used in a wiser way, working in reassembling the existing fabric of the site manages to engage architects in a more humble and time consuming design process, without rushing the results to achieve environments that inspire the change of paradigm we demand in this anthropocentric times.

Since daily habits and community dynamics have repercussions in cultural, social, political, economic end even historical spheres when a building is demolished, whole Communities displaced, not only the inhabitants of the specific building, by the destruction of the space they inhabit but by gentrification that makes the rent in the surrounding area to grow higher and the whole community starts gradually but not slowly, moving away. The Identity that enriches the urban fabric is lost and the connections given by the closeness diluted.

We also must consider the environmental consequences, like Co2 emissions to the atmosphere and Extraction of new materials. Every wall left standing means heaps of energy, ecosystems and even lives and Tons of material kept away from landfills since many materials used in the past centuries like concrete cannot be easily recycled. Therefore, an approach that allows saving even the worst architecture has more weight than a merely pragmatic and simplistic approach that invites to build a new one, bad or good.

Employment generation is often used an argument to keep the fast pace of construction, and building,

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Project C - San Gimignano Lichtenberg Location: Berlin, Germany Year: 2012 - ongoing Architects: Arno Brandlhuber Former use: Factory for graphite production Current use: Researching, producing Researching the power of demolition

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SSIGNMENT 1/ PRECEDENT STUDY OMEN ‘BALCONY RUIN’ 0

STUDIO 37/ ASSIGNMENT 1/ PRECEDENT STUDY PAUL NEWCOMEN D #5 - RENDER

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How you build matters

Adapting does not mean stopping building because it seeks to densify, reimagine possible events and maximize them. Nor does it mean replicating what exists or keeping the uses of the space, it is not necessary to add more Doric columns, it is necessary to creatively recycle and redefine past styles, giving rise to a new eclecticism. Reuse might seem restrictive bur it presents the opportunity for a richer response inside the limitations. (Lang, 2022)

option would be to reassemble and repurpose instead of demolishing, taking piece by piece, with the same precision with which it is built, almost by means of a reverse mining process, where a potential waste is traded, classified and stored as if it were a valuable piece of history museum, because it is.

“Cheap is more” said Architect Jean-Philippe Vassal from the French, Pritzker winning coupe Lacaton & Vassal (Vassal, 2015), arguing that each place can be improved with the bare minimum of resources which eventually leads to reuse, recycle, reimagine, retrofit, revamp, refurbish. This approach is led by the idea of doing the minimum with the minimum and, again, not only has a positive impact in terms of sustainability because of the energy consumption of the buildings is often reduced, but also has a positive impact on existing residents.

Some architects take a more radical approach, absolutely refusing to remove or replace any part and insisting on always adding, even if this means repowering the structure or just inserting lightweight elements. Others understand the adaptation situation more freely, letting the objects found in the place tell their story by intervening or changing their location.

In many projects it will not be possible to conserve the entire existing building, in this case the best

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Project D - M26 réhabilitation et extension Location: France, Toulouse Year: 2020 Architects: BAST Former use: Two suburban houses Current use: Connection of two houses into one Adding consciously for sustainability

Impermanence should be kept in our mind when designing. The most accurate thing that can be said about a piece of architecture is that change is the only constant, as the users who inhabit will change. That is why it is important to leave room for flexibility and new readaptations because, as Norman Foster, said, the best building is one that can be recycled (Foster, 2021).

Starting with the existing always ads more richness, let’s repair the crack that the modernist movement created in history and let’s put aside the idea of architecture as the formal search for style. Let’s regenerate dialogues between styles and tectonics of different eras and build without fear of eclecticism.

From now on, the first step in a renovation project should be an examination of what exists, seeking to conserve and retain as much of the original as possible, recognizing its environmental, economic, and sociocultural value.

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SOUTH ELEVATION 1:100

POLYCARB. LW FRAMING EXTG. BRICK

CURTAIN RAIL

CURTAIN CONC. LINTEL GLAZING

TIMBER ARCHITRAVE

FLOOR PLAN 1:100

NAME: BILLY ASTON PROJECT: BAST - M26 ID: 1212607

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Future scenarios and Global alignment Densifications processes might happen in many cities in the future. The space to build new housing must end somewhere, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing, we need to put limits to our cities. And this pressure to densify is a great opportunity to look closely, rethink to what we already have and reuse it.

Adaptive reuse is not a new concept, it has been around the last two decades and has been implemented in many projects and is starting to reverberate. Even before there was a title to it there’s always been the alternative of reusing instead of demolishing. I align myself with those architects who have assumed the rest of reusing instead of designing something new unaware of the history and the consequences that this entails.

What has motivated us to conserve many buildings and declare them heritage has been their historical value, but this has also stopped us from bringing them to our time, intervening in them or designing new spaces based on what already exists. In my case, the motivation towards reuse is no longer to conserve the historical value of the object, but rather to conserve the community and the environment.

In recent weeks I’ve become familiar with the book “Building for change” by Ruth Lang. a book that features diverse projects that reuse existing buildings in a creative way. This book also presents some figures that help to define the panorama, such as the fact that “80% of the buildings projected to exist in 2050, the year of the UN’s net zero carbon emissions target, have already been built” which puts architects in the spotlight as the main actors to change it (Lang, 2022).

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Project E - 530 Dwellings

Site Plan 1 : 2500

Building Plan 1 : 1000

Location: BORDEAUX, FRANCE Year: 2016 Architects: Lacaton & Vassal Former use: Social Housing Current use: Social Housing Avoiding waste and gentrification

Part Plan 1 : 50

Liam Blanc - 996663

Lacaton & Vassal - 530 Dwellings Plan 1:50

Design Studio C - Studio 37

Proposal for the domestication of a FAMOUS tower in Melbourne

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The specific case of Medellín This phenomenon is particularly interesting to me because in my hometown, Medellín. A town of the mountains of south America, I’ve seen many buildings, being demolished to be replaced by dull housing, or improvised commercial spaces, creating more problems than it solves. Tons of waste are generated without considering the possibilities and the charm of the existing bricks, doors, and windows. Is not for a sentimental reason but for the existential threat of climate change and environmental disasters that we need to do things differently. Even in the case of generic housing buildings, that might not look special or worth it of being conserved is a lot invested and that’s our history. When we get to a site in nature, we don’t think of demolishing a three or a pond, then why do we do this with pre-existing buildings?

This renovation process that is densifying the city is due to a geographical phenomenon, Medellín is located in a very narrow valley in the Andes mountains and in the 80’s grew rapidly out of the valley towards the slopes of the mountain, this endangers the water source for the whole city. To avoid the city to keep going higher in the mountain the city council defined some areas near the river (the lowest part of the city) to be renewed, this neighbourhoods consist, some of small retail and workshops, and the others of industrial buildings that don’t operate in the city anymore.

The idea is to fill this neighbourhoods with high towers of mixed use with services, retail and institution on the podiums and housing, offices, and hotels in the towers. The existing urban fabric might be interpreted for many developers as a mistake or problem that must be erased and rebuild but for me the right approach would be adaptive reuse of these spaces and protect the complexity and diversity given by years of history.

In the same scenario, I’ve seen some cases of success where good design has brought new life to abandoned buildings starting to emerge, in cultural centres and sports fields. I hope that soon we start to do the same with housing so the forced renovation process that Medellín is undergoing doesn’t become the environmental tragedy they are trying to prevent.

2 projects of the Medellín metropolitan area illustrate how remarkable can a project be when faced with the scenario of renovation Arts and crafts park, 2010 and Museum of modern art expansion, 2015.

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Project F – Arts and crafts park Location: Bello, Colombia Year: 2010 - Ongoing Architects: Former use: Train workshops Proposed use: Arts and crafts park

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Project G – Museum of modern art expansion Location: Medellín, Colombia Year: 2015 Architects: 51-1, Capa Arquitectura, Viviana Peña Former use: steel production plant Current use: Arts Museum

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Conclusion

I can summarize this manifesto in the way that the French poet Tristan Tzara suggested starting “I want A, B and C and I strike down 1, 2 and 3”

What am I standing against?

Ever since I arrived in Melbourne, I have been appalled by the sprawling city with large housing extensions, its origins and consequences, and its constant expansion that sometimes seems unstoppable. what is the other alternative to this? the compact and diverse city, and how do we compact the city? Well, densifying what already exists, but this must be done without demolishing to take advantage of the energy embedded in the place instead of dissipating it and consuming more. How do we build then? facing the place and avoiding the tabula rasa that demolishes and builds again. Fortunately, the adaptive reuse movement is gaining relevance and is no longer associated with low cost or an economic necessity but has become desirable to progressive clients and even some developers.

1.

Urban sprawl

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Tabula rasa (demolition)

3.

Shiny and new buildings

What changes do I demand?

A.

Compact and diverse city

B.

Without demolishing the existing

C.

Adapting exiting building to new uses.

Architects must choose to reuse instead of building new and must bring developers along to this approach.

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Project H - Les Balés C De La B Location: Ghent, Belgium Year: 2008 Architects: Architecten de Vylder Vinck Taillieu Former use: Hospital Current use: Production studios Changing the user appropriation of use

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Glossary of Re/Verbs

REVERBERATION Verb. If an idea reverberates somewhere, it influences everyone and everything in a place

REASSEMBLE. Verb. to come together again, or bring something together again, in a single place. to make something again by joining its separate parts together.

REEVALUATE Verb. to judge or calculate the quality, importance, amount, or value of something again, for a second, third, time.

RECYCLE Verb. to sort and collect rubbish in order to treat it and produce useful materials that can be used again.

REUSE Verb. to use something again.

REPLICATE Verb. to make or do something again in exactly the same way.

REFRAME Verb. to change the way something is expressed or considered.

RESPOND Verb. to say or do something as a reaction to something that has been said or done

RENEW Verb. to increase the life of or replace something old.

RETROFIT verb. To communicate an idea back and forth to define it in detail.

REIMAGINE Verb. to change a mental picture or idea of something.

REVAMP Verb. to change or arrange something again, in order to improve it.

REAPPROPRIATE Verb. to take something back or use it in a new or different way.

REFURBISH Verb. to make a building look new again by doing work such as painting, repairing, and cleaning.

RECONSTRUCT Verb. to build or create again something that has been damaged or destroyed.

REDUCE. Verb. to become or to make something become smaller in size, amount, degree, importance.

REPLACE Verb. to take the place of something, or to put something or someone in the place of something or someone else.

READAPT Verb. to change, or to change something, to suit different conditions or uses.

REWIRE Verb. To connect again to an existing system.

REGENERATE Verb. to improve a place or system, especially by making it more active or successful

REMOVE Verb. to take something away from an object, group, or place.

RETHINK Verb. to think again about a plan, idea, or system in order to change or improve it.

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Images List Cover photo by Laura Arboleda-Franco

2.

Illustration by Brandlhuber+ Georg Diez from https://bplus.xyz/projects/0154-san-gimignano-lichtenberg

All credits with * next to it mean that the drawings were made as part of assignment 1 of studio 37 by students to understand some precedents.

3.

Illustration by Illustration by Paul Newcomen*

Project A

4.

Illustration by Illustration by Paul Newcomen*

1.

Project D

Isometric by Laura Arboleda-Franco*

2.

Photography from https://www.dezeen. com/2022/03/01/nantou-city-guesthouse-shenzhenchina-neri-hu/ 3.

Plans by Laura Arboleda-Franco*

4.

Elevation by Laura Arboleda-Franco*

5.

Elevation by Laura Arboleda-Franco*

Elevation by William Aston*

2.

Plan by William Aston*

3.

Render by William Aston*

Project E 1.

Photograph by Philippe Ruault from https://www. archdaily.com/915431/transformation-of-530-dwellings-lacaton-and-vassal-plus-frederic-druot-plus-christophe-hutin-architecture

Project B 1.

1.

Plan by Luke Campkin-Smith*

2.

Illustration by DOGMA from http://hiddenarchitecture.net/pretty-vacant/

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Plan by Liam Blanc*

3.

Elevation by Liam Blanc*

3.

Collage by Luke Campkin-Smith*

Project F

4.

Elevation by Luke Campkin-Smith*

5.

Section by Luke Campkin-Smith

1.

Site plan by Taller Síntesis from https://tallersintesis.com

Project C

2.

Photo of existing conditions from https://tallersintesis.com

1.

Isometric by Brandlhuber+ Georg Diez from https://bplus.xyz/projects/0154-san-gimignano-lichtenberg

3.

Isometric by Taller Síntesis from https://tallersintesis.com 30

Reference List Project G 1.

Site plan by 51-1, Capa Arquitectura, Viviana Peña from https://www.archdaily.com/877960/extension-of-the-modern-art-museum-of-medellin-ctrl-gplus-51-1?ad_source=search&ad_medium=projects_ tab

Gehl, J. (2013). Cities for people. Island press.

Lacaton, A. (2018, January). Anne Lacaton Interview: Always Add. (M.-C. Wagner, Interviewer) Denmark.

Lang, R. (2022). Building for change. Berlin: Gestalten.

2.

Elevation by 51-1, Capa Arquitectura, Viviana Peña from https://www.archdaily.com/877960/extension-of-the-modern-art-museum-of-medellin-ctrl-gplus-51-1?ad_source=search&ad_medium=projects_ tab

Rueda, S. (1997). La ciudad compacta y diversa frente a la conurbación difusa. Ciudades para un futuro más sostenible, 69-83.

Stiphout, S. V. (2013). Suburban sprawl: Exposing hidden costs. Smart Prosperity Institute. Canada.

3.

Section by 51-1, Capa Arquitectura, Viviana Peña from https://www.archdaily.com/877960/extension-ofthe-modern-art-museum-of-medellin-ctrl-g-plus-511?ad_source=search&ad_medium=projects_tab

Vassal, J.-P. (2015, March 26). “Freedom of Use”. (H. GSD, Interviewer) Harvard GSD . Paris. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/zdgYGkQM9zc

4.

Photo by Federico Cairoli from https://www. archdaily.com/877960/extension-of-the-modern-artmuseum-of-medellin-ctrl-g-plus-51-1?ad_source=search&ad_medium=projects_tab Project H 1.

Elevation by Zephyr Leonard*

2.

Photo by Filip Dujardin from https://architizer. com/projects/les-ballets-c-de-la-b-and-lod/ 3.

Plan by Zephyr Leonard*

4.

Section by Zephyr Leonard*

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