Arising from research undertaken as part of the 2017 Byera Hadley Travelling Scholarship, Alternative Realities presents a current snapshot of professional practice, taken as a cross section from four global cities: Sydney, Hong Kong, London and New York. Each of these four cities have had to face up to the challenge of increasing urban density juxtaposed against an increasingly ageing building stock and the need to future proof their cities for the 21st Century and beyond. The proposal presents the recent achievements of practitioners from these cities and examines their thinking and methodologies on adaptive reuse as one of the significant approaches to tackling the sustainable future of our built environment. Through a series of twenty interviews undertaken between February – June 2018 with architects and, first-hand experiences of the almost forty selected case study projects, the buildings are to be presented not as static objects of a particular time and historical setting, but shown to be extended, reconfigured or transformed to suit new modes of function and thought.

The relevance of adaptive reuse as a key approach to conservation and revitalisation should not be underestimated. In 2011, the Paris Declaration on Heritage as a Driver of Development was published with the clear vision of “integrating heritage and ensuring that it has a role in the context of sustainable development is to demonstrate that heritage plays a part in social cohesion, well-being, creativity and economic appeal, and is a factor in promoting understanding between communities.” This process of determining heritage significance however is often contested and as architectural theorist and writer Deyan Sudjic’s warns, “We are afraid of how cities change in ways that take away our memories of who we are, and those who came before us, once were.” The desire to conserve, partnered with an ongoing global public outcry surrounding the demolition of what may or may not be considered “significant” buildings, demonstrates that architectural heritage remains a heated and often disregarded aspect of the built environment which needs to be urgently addressed as part of the sustainable future of our cities.

About the Analysis

The research methodology adopted for this project was qualitative data collection and secondary sources. Primary data collection involved field research of the proposed case studies and semi- structured face-to-face interviews based on formulated questions arising out of the research objectives. Initial questions served as the base, with the interviews extended through instantaneous question and answer-responses to the interviewees’ answers. The use of in-depth interviews as the primary mode of data collection was selected because it enabled exploration of attitudes, values, beliefs and motives. These Interviews have been documented by Audio-visual means with a transcript of each interview in English also retained as appendices to this body of work. The field research will also involve the photographing and/or filming of the buildings and freehand notation and drawings to record significant design components and architectural details. Additional information collection was also focused on qualitative data, with broad terms of reference to obtain heritage impact assessments, historical records, legislative guidelines and academic critiques of case study projects. A range of historical archives were also used in the collection of historical site information. The presentation of case studies in each city has been identified and ordered geographically, from north to south, east to west. A location map in each section provides a clear identification of each project’s location within the wider urban context of the city.

Our Findings

The Inevitability of Obsolescence

Physical Obsolescence - The material fabric and structure of a building or site is no longer able to stand independently.

Economic Obsolescence - It is no longer economically viable for a site to be operated in the manner for which a building may have been originally designed.

Functional Obsolescence - Changes in cities means that the function of a building is for which it was originally designed is no longer required.

Technological Obsolescence - Technologies have changed to render a site no longer necessary, or a building is incapable of adapting to technological change due to the rigidity of its original spatial planning and structure.

Socio-Cultural Obsolescence - A place of socio-cultural significance is no longer necessary (such as a place of worship), because cultural practices have changed, rendering the building obsolete.

Two Categories of Adaptation

Form Extends Function: where contemporary additions are added to supplement pre-existing use, and

Form ≠ Function: where the contemporary additions have been implemented to provide a new compatible use which differs from the buildings original design intent.

37 Buildings, 4 Cities, 4 Continents

Five Principles of Adaptive Architecture

Integrity

Preserving the integrity of the original fabric where conservation takes place with rigor and without detrimental changes. Repairs are made at the bare minimum and there is a marked avoidance of replication. Integrity also informs deciding what aspect ought to be retained and what can be removed and altered, whilst retaining key original qualities of social and cultural significance.

Memory

Closely aligned to the theme of integrity, memory recognizes that buildings are often, physical manifestations of a particular moment in history, resulting in significant socio-cultural and emotional attachment by individuals and communities. Projects must therefore take into account how our collective cultural memory of a building can also be conserved and re-presented.

Authenticity

The cross section which was taken demonstrates the broad consensus that new fabric should be of its time and tectonic culture. They present a thoughtful abstraction of preexisting form and spatial qualities, not replication or re-creation of past forms. The result is the generation of new experiences in how the end user interacts with both the historical and the new built fabric.

Flexibility

We have seen that change is perhaps the only constant factor over the course of the development of our cities. There must be recognition that functional change is almost inevitable and that it is necessary to plan for the foreseeable unforeseen circumstances of the future. As a result, projects provide a degree of flexibility, where further changes might be easily integrated and no longer be bound by the rigidity of specific spatial forms and functions.

Sustainability

Recognizing the constant cycle of demolition and construction of wholly new, purpose-built structures is no longer a viable, reasonable or sustainable means of urban development. Projects take into consideration sustainable approaches from the recycling of entire structures on site, to the careful and critical analysis of which components should be demolished or replaced to reduce the overall ecological footprint of construction.

Resources

/ Full Report

The full research report published by the NSW Architects Registration Board which provides an overview of the research and detailed reviews of each individual case study explored in this project.

/ Youtube Series

A youtube series featuring global architects’ responses to the simple proposition: What does adaptive reuse mean in architecture?

/ Public Lecture

A presentation on the five pillars of adaptive architecture, delivered at the 2018 University of Sydney Centenary Symposium on Cathedral Thinking in Architecture.