Transforming Urban Spaces: The Future of Adaptive Reuse in Building Design
The Rise of Adaptive Reuse: Turning Challenges into Opportunities in Urban Development
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In this newsletter, we will explore the Adaptive Reuse of existing buildings as an approach to Development.
Adaptive reuse helps preserving the character of existing buildings. It also supports environmental sustainability and brings new life into urban areas. Recent research by SOM, Gensler, and NBBJ highlights the benefits of adaptive reuse in modern urban development.
The construction of new buildings is being questioned today, because of the need to decarbonise the sector. I have a series of articles on Decarbonising Real Estate if you’d like to read more on this subject.
Here’s what we will be covering in the Newsletter:
Office to Residential Conversions
Office to Multi-Purposes Spaces.
Retail to Office Conversions.
Challenges and Innovations in Adaptive Reuse.
Future of Adaptive Reuse.
Now, let's dive in.
1. Office to Residential Conversions
Since the pandemic Offices as a Real Estate asset class are not performing well. Vacancies are high particularly for office buildings of Grade B standard. Converting Offices into Residential units helps address the growing demand.
Typical challenges to overcome are:
Deep floor plans of modern office buildings in UK and US are not suitable for living space standards.
Structural modifications required to alter the floor-plates.
Zoning regulations put a constraint on the ability to change uses.
Gensler’s assessment made on more than 300 buildings shows that only 25% are ok for conversion. Costs could reduce by as much as 30% in certain cases. SOM highlights how tech advancements helps find innovative solutions to adapt older buildings into high performing space.
“Together with advances in technology, I think that design creativity is going to be one of the keys to unlocking the viability of retrofitting, as opposed to tearing these buildings down in the future.” - Frank Mahan, SOM
2. Partial Conversion of Offices to Multi-Purpose Spaces
Companies are reducing their footprints, but still keeping central hubs for meeting and collaboration. This creates an opportunity to partialliy repurpose these buildings with the introduction of other uses that are more in demand.
Gensler’s research “Office to Everything” highlights three potential benefits of partial conversions:
As only a part of office assets is desirable to tenants, this opens up an opportunity to a more strategic approach to the use of the space.
The opportunity to combine a reduced office footprint with other uses to meet existing demand.
The ability to transform less desirable parts of a building (such as floors with poor views) into spaces providing a more suitable use.
601 Lexington Avenue is a project that provides a good example of how to transform space to revitalise a building. The ground floor and lower levels of the office become a multi-purpose environment. It provides new retail spaces, food and beverage outlets and community spaces. This new space helped attract more foot traffic and turned the building into an urban hub.
3. Retail to Office Conversions
Retail has struggled as a Real Estate asset class a decade since before Covid-19. The market became over-saturated with Big Box retail stores leading to many left empty. The conversion of these retail stores is an opportunity to provide office space closer to where people live.
“Local Malls, Stuck in ‘Death Spiral,’ Plunge in Value” - Wall Street Journal
Converting these Big Box retail spaces into offices comes with its challenges.
Gensler highlights a few key points in the research article “Thinking Outside the (Big) box”:
Dealing with existing conditions ⇒ building services and infrastructure often needs large adaptation.
Volume and Openness ⇒ the challenge of bringing down the massive scale of the space to a more human level
Natural Light ⇒ big box retail is often windowless; structural alterations are necessary to introduce large openings.
4. Challenges and Innovations in Adaptive Reuse
The adaptive reuse of buildings is more complex than developing new buildings from the ground up. It is a must to understand where the challenges (see point 3 above) and the opportunities are.
NBBJ brings up the issue that many buildings constructed before 2000 are currently facing a “midlife crisis”. This is due to their outdated designs and competition with newer, amenity-rich buildings. Redesigning and repositioning them can be a more sustainable and quicker solution to demolition.
The term "midlife crisis" often sparks negative connotations: an impractical sportscar or a drastic makeover. However, midlife can also be a time for reinvention and positive change. - NBBJ
Key strategies for revitalisation include:
Reimagining the Ground Plane ⇒ creating dynamic public spaces and integrating successful neighbourhood retail.
Rethinking Garages and Alleyways ⇒ creating community hubs or active urban backyards.
Repurposing Rooftops ⇒ creating rooftop gardens, communal spaces and energy generation.
Updating Building Systems ⇒ to improve energy efficiency and tenant comfort.
5. Future of Adaptive Reuse
There is an ever increasing number of buildings constructed in the past 30-40 years that by today’s standards are obsolete. Cushman and Wakefield highlights that up to 20% of US office buildings is now obsolete.
SOM’s research envisions adaptive reuse as a critical strategy for urban resilience. It emphasises its role in transforming outdated buildings into sustainable, energy-efficient spaces. This approach reduces environmental impact by preserving embodied carbon. It also revitalizes urban areas, making them more vibrant and viable.
Conclusion
Adaptive reuse is here to stay and will need to grow further as an approach to real estate development. This is critical if the industry is serious about decarbonising.
To recap here are the key takeaways to bring home:
Sustainability: Adaptive reuse allows development to preserve the embodied carbon in existing buildings.
Repositioning Space: Partial conversions of offices are an opportunity to transform undesirable space into space in demand.
Improved Revenue: Adaptive reuse also means looking at how it might be possible to extract value out of every element of existing buildings.
Innovation: Technological advancement means it’s becoming easier to reposition obsolete buildings.
That’s all for today.
See you next week.
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