Quintin Lake

Adaptive Reuse as a Strategy for Sustainable Urban Development and Regeneration

November 04, 2023

“New ideas must use old buildings,” said Jane Jacobs in her seminal book The Death and Life of Great American Cities, championing the reuse of existing building stock as a means to catalyze positive change and foster diverse urban environments. Inserting new activities within an existing framework is increasingly becoming a defining aspect of contemporary architecture, as the need for sustainable alternatives to building anew turns more urgent. From an urban perspective, adaptive reuse is a valuable strategy for revitalizing post-industrial cities, creating density and mitigating urban sprawl, or helping shrinking cities redefine their urban fabric.

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Industrial Nouveau: Dramatic Renovation Projects Reimagining Urban Life

September 09, 2023

No building stands in isolation. Engaging environmental and cultural networks, architecture is an inherently grounded art. As such, limits, constraints, and restrictions drive the design process forward, engendering solutions that celebrate the world as we find it. Embodying this dynamic, renovations and adaptive reuse projects embrace challenging problems and existing conditions. This is especially true when working with industrial buildings, places where machinery, manufacturing, and power combine.

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Architectural Salvage: Cultural Hotspots using Adaptive Reuse

January 16, 2022

The dawn of the Anthropocene has thrown the idea of adaptive reuse into the limelight: effectively the pinnacle of urban regeneration and revitalization. It utilizes the presence of existing buildings with historic and cultural value and re-purposes them to be functional. Essentially a form of architectural salvage; a sustainable and viable means of rebuilding.

Recent events such as the pandemic has highlighted inequalities in our cityscape, the inadequate segments in a state of disuse and disrepair. Adaptive reuse can replenish these areas and create new cultural hotspots, encouraging activity and creating vibrant and healthy mixed-use environments.

Below is a diverse selection of cultural hotspots using Adaptive Reuse

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Arter Museum / Grimshaw

July 31, 2020

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Architects: Grimshaw
Area: 17050 m²
Year: 2019
Manufacturers: Sto, Dinesen, Fibrobeton, Microstation, Robert McNeel & Associates
Professionals: A-Teknik, Enmar, Dinamik, Entegre, Ark Insaat, +1

Fiber Cement Facades in Architecture: 9 Notable Examples

October 31, 2019

How to build light and modular facades with a rustic and monolithic appearance?

Composed of cement, cellulose, and mineral materials, fiber cement allows us to clad walls in a light, non-combustible, and rain-resistant way, generating facades with different textures, colors, and tones. Its panels are easily manageable and perforable, and can configure ventilated facades when installed with a certain separation between the rear wall. Check out 9 projects below that have cleverly used fiber cement as the primary material in facades.

6 Projects Win 2017 RIBA West Midlands Awards

May 16, 2017

The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) has announced the first wave of their 2017 RIBA Regional Awards, beginning with the West Midlands region. Six projects were selected as winners from the region, which includes the city of Birmingham and its surrounding area.

“This year's winning projects prove that a good architecture should allow its user a space and time to absorb and to reflect,” commented Regional Jury Chair, Natalia Maximova. “The selected designs frame our experience of the buildings and spaces rather than dictate it. They highlight the fact that there is no true architecture without a clear vision and a strong concept. Originality remains a highly valued commodity and a source of inspiration for others and therefore should be recognised.

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Nick Leith-Smith Builds Timber Frame Family Home in 10 Weeks

March 07, 2015

Text description provided by the architects. London-based Nick Leith-Smith Architecture + Design built a timber frame family home in just ten weeks, replacing an existing post-war bungalow in Berkshire. The environmentally friendly residence is 240-square-meters and sits on a designated flood zone, requiring the house to be placed upon a 1-meter-high brick plinth. The addition of such height creates a split level between the garage and entrance level, adding depth to an otherwise restrained material palette.

Learn more about the project and view select images after the break.

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The 14 Stories Behind the 2015 Building of the Year Award Winners

February 12, 2015

With our annual Building of the Year Awards, over 30,000 readers narrowed down over 3,000 projects, selecting just 14 as the best examples of architecture that ArchDaily has published in the past year. The results have been celebrated and widely shared, of course, usually in the form of images of each project. But what is often forgotten in this flurry of image sharing is that every one of these 14 projects has a backstory of significance which adds to our understanding of their architectural quality.

Some of these projects are intelligent responses to pressing social issues, others are twists on a well-established typology. Others still are simply supreme examples of architectural dexterity. In order that we don't forget the tremendous amount of effort that goes into creating each of these architectural masterpieces, continue reading after the break for the 14 stories that defined this year's Building of the Year Awards.