Adaptive reuse

[1] The adaptive reuse of buildings can be a viable alternative to new construction in terms of sustainability and a circular economy, and it has been used to create affordable housing, among other developments.

[6] Revitalizing the existing built fabric by finding a new use or purpose for obsolete buildings can be a wonderful resource to a community by "keeping neighborhoods occupied and vital".

[7] According to Yung and Chan, "adaptive reuse is a new kind of maintainable rebirth of city, as it covers the building's lifetime and evades destruction waste, encourages recycles of the embodied dynamism and also delivers substantial social and economic profits to the world".

[9] The most significant benefits of adaptive reuse of existing buildings include increased economic opportunities, urban regeneration, preserved cultural and historical heritage values, reduced landfill demolition waste, increased energy efficiency, extended building usefulness, and cost-effectiveness, enhanced property value, improved life quality, reduced carbon emissions, and lesser energy consumption.

[16] The current climate change reality requires integrating the global sustainability challenge of conserving natural resources for future generations with improving resilience and adaptive capacity within the built environment.

[17] There are four typical categories of stakeholders involved in an adaptive reuse decision-making process: i) investors; ii) producers; iii) regulators; and iv) users.

According to Zaitzevsky and Bunnell, old buildings physically link us to our past and become a part of our cultural heritage; they should be preserved because of their "architectural beauty" and the "character and scale they add to the built environment".

In a survey conducted by Bullen and Love, it was observed that building owners and operators were most concerned about a multitude of financial considerations, while deciding whether to reuse their built assets.

Additionally, they thought that "in Central Business District locations, built assets are an attractive investment option for reuse projects, as premium prices and rents can be obtained for an office space".

[24] Bullen and Love's survey respondents thought that "the benefits of reusing their existing facility could include avoiding the disruption of relocation, reducing maintenance and running costs".

According to Bullen and Love, the buildings of the 1960s and 1970s in Perth were badly constructed, used ineffective thermal insulation materials and details and have low suitability for adaptive reuse.

[24] Suggested solutions from some survey respondents include establishing a mandate to only lease buildings that have undergone adaptive reuse with a high Energy Star rating.

Some of the architects thought that there was a high dependency and credit given to energy and green building rating systems such as the "Green Star Environment Rating System"[24] but not enough credit was given to the improvements carried out during adaptive reuse and its sustainable outcomes such as the recycling of building materials, reduced energy and water consumption and reduced environmental impacts like global warming potential, lake eutrophication potential and ozone layer depletion.

One architect thought that "undertaking exemplar adaptive reuse demonstration projects for industry professionals to assess and emulate would display a commitment to sustainability and urban regeneration".

[7] Lack of adaptive reuse of existing built assets, on a societal level, has caused disturbance due to dislocation of residents, economic decline and disruption of community life, eventually leading to abandoned and obsolete neighborhoods.

Adaptive reuse means that the stakeholders of the built asset are relieving governments and municipalities off the load of having to supply these public amenities on distant plots.

[27] Shen and Langston developed an integrated model for the assessment of adaptive reuse potential by comparing case studies of one urban and one non-urban setting.

The basis of this model lies in that "opportunity rises and falls within the confines of a negative exponential decay function linked to a building's physical life expectancy".

The adaptive reuse potential calculator establishes a "predicted useful life" of a building by considering a series of physical, economic, functional, technological, social, legal and political characteristics.

[27] An algorithm based on a standard decay (negative exponential) curve produces an index of reuse potential (known as the ARP score) and is expressed as a percentage.

A condition assessment primarily inspects a building's structural integrity, roofing, masonry, plaster, wood-work, tiling and the mechanical, electrical and plumbing systems.

After the neighborhood has been established to be stable and safe and free of any infringing decay, the next step is to determine what amenities it has to offer in terms of roadways, public transportation, shopping and eating, hospitals, schools and libraries and so on.

This disassembly planning sequence aims to reduce the environmental impacts caused due to demolition using a "rule-base recursive analysis system" with practical and viable solutions.

Vancouver's Yaletown, an upscale neighbourhood established in the 1990s, features warehouses and other small-industrial structures and spaces converted into apartments and offices for the gentrification of the area.

Formerly-industrial areas such as the Meatpacking District in New York City, Callowhill in Philadelphia and SoMa in San Francisco are being transformed into residential neighborhoods through this process.

[53] Nearly $50 million was committed to restore and adapt the large Glenside Psychiatric Hospital and precinct as the new Adelaide Studios of the South Australian Film Corporation opened by Premier Rann in October 2011.

[55] In Europe, the main forms of adaptive reuse have been around former palaces and unused residences of the different European royal families into publicly accessible galleries and museums.

In Paris, France, the most famous example of adaptive reuse is the Musée du Louvre, a former palace built in the late 12th century under Philip II and opened to the public as a museum in 1793.

The wide industrial space has proven to be a worthy backdrop to modern art, with the famous turbine hall hosting artworks by artists including Olafur Eliasson, Rachel Whiteread and Ai Weiwei.

This project received 2007 Lensvelt de Architect interior design award for its innovative reuse and is number one on The Guardian's worldwide top ten bookstores list.