Adaptive Reuse

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Adaptive Reuse

Alsobrooks, Mark

URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10429/2181

Date: 2021-05-19

Abstract:

Adaptive Reuse takes many ideas from Historical Preservation with similar goals of preserving the nature and collective identity of an existing site. Using Historic Preservation as a basis for further understanding the drivers of Adaptive Reuse. The drivers of Time, Material, Layering, and Change of Reuse will be identified and explained in order to understand the impact they carry on Adaptive Reuse projects and in order to be used to analyze precedent studies. With the findings of these precedent studies; typologies of Adaptive Reuse can be constructed to further analyze the precedents as well as the understanding of Adaptive Reuse so far. With this foundational knowledge of the workings of Adaptive Reuse a case study can be identified and analyzed through the lenses of the drivers previously illustrated. Using the findings to further the understanding of how the drivers effect a building a real life example as well as seeing the successes and failures of the drivers, of the building being examined, and of Adaptive Reuse. Upon completion of the foundational understanding and theory behind Adaptive Reuse a series of potential sites will be selected for study with the intent to narrow down the selection to just one. Once a site is established contextual research into the surrounding neighborhoods will be conducted and the needs, history, demographics, identity, culture will all be studied, and assessed using the previous research in order to form a possible design solution that will dictate a programmatic approach to the site being designed on. After a program can be chosen subsequent research can be used to begin to make informed design ideas. The end goal of this thesis being a well informed and successful Adaptive Reuse design of an existing structure within Detroit.

Description:

This thesis approaches Adaptive Reuse two fold. Firstly, it aims to understand the background and roots of Adaptive Reuse by exploring where the field evolved from and what drives its projects. Secondly, it takes the understanding gained from the research and applies it to real life examples found in Detroit. Adaptive Reuse is characterized by its adaptability, something found within its own name. The ability to push the boundaries and flexibility of architecture through changing and adapting buildings to new uses and styles and forms. This Adaptive Reuse takes many attributes from the four forms of Historic Preservation (Preservation, Restoration, Rehabilitation, and Reconstruction) and uses them in new ways in order to not only save historically relevant structures but also creates deeply contextual and supportive works. An Important aspect of Adaptive Reuse and historical buildings is the role Time plays. Time on its most surface level is what degrades building materials and causes them to change and be replaced. Taking this idea down another level allows us to understand this constant change that time is causing is what causes the Problem, or need, for Reuse. A building if left alone without change will find itself not only falling apart but adrift in its own context, no longer a product of what's around it. Adaptive Reuse allows this structure, a product of a need, to become a new product for a new need in a constantly changing context. This cycle is cyclical always changing and always requiring new needs and solutions to them. A hidden product of time would then be Layering. As time goes on and a building finds new uses and changes, layers of these changes build up and are stripped away and added back onto. This causes a building to have not only a rich detailed morphology but also a visual timeline of its history. Detroit’s corridors are littered with small scale, simplistic buildings that speak back to the 1940’s and 50’s when much of these small brick and CMU buildings built to house unique family run businesses were erected. These buildings go by mostly unnoticed to a unknowing passerby, only standing out as a rich historical monument to a very close context. Very often structures of this type that have been forgotten and left to rot unobstructed are demolished and removed without thought to any potential. These semi unique Detroit buildings stand as huge potential for reuse projects throughout Detroit to recognize its history, bring back small business, and save local micro cultures. Taking what was learned about what drives Adaptive Reuse and how it is implemented. These findings can be applied to an single sample of the large resource of Detroit's every day structures as an example of the successful potential of Adaptive Reuse within Detroit .

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