How to reimagine existing buildings to create a more sustainable future The construction and operation of buildings is responsible for 41 percent of all primary energy use and 48 percent of all carbon emissions, and the impact of the demolition and removal of an older building can greatly diminish the advantages of adding green technologies to new construction. In Building Reuse, Kathryn Rogers Merlino makes an impassioned case that truly sustainable design requires reusing and reimagining existing buildings. Additionally, Merlino calls for a more expansive view of preservation that goes beyond keeping only the most distinctive structures based on their historical and cultural significance to embrace the creative reuse of even unremarkable buildings for their environmental value. Building Reuse includes a compelling range of case studies—from a private home to an eighteen-story office building—all located in the Pacific Northwest, a region with a long history of sustainable design and urban growth policies that have made reuse projects feasible. Reusing existing buildings can be challenging to accomplish, but changing the way we think about environmentally conscious architecture has the potential to significantly reduce energy consumption, carbon emissions, and waste.

Building in existing fabric requires more than practical solutions and stylistic skills. The adaptive reuse of buildings, where changes in the structure go along with new programs and functions, poses the fundamental question of how the past should be included in the design for the future. On the background of long years of teaching and publishing, and using vivid imagery from Frankenstein to Rem Koolhaas and beyond, the author provides a comprehensive introduction to architectural design for adaptive reuse projects. History and theory, building typology, questions of materials and construction, aspects of preservation, urban as well as interior design are dealt with in ways that allow to approach adaptive reuse as a design practice field of its own right.

It is clear that working with historic structures is both more environmentally sustainable and cost effective than new architecture and construction—and many believe that the best design occurs at the intersection of old and new. Françoise Astorg Bollack presents 28 examples gathered in the United States and throughout Europe and the Middle East. Some are well known—Mass MOCA, Market Santa Caterina in Barcelona, Neues Museum in Berlin—and others are almost anonymous. But all demonstrate a unique and appropriate solution to the problem of adapting historic structures to contemporary uses. This survey of contemporary additions to older buildings is an essential addition to the architectural literature. “I have always loved old buildings. An old building is not an obstacle but instead a foundation for continued action. Designing with them is an exhilarating enterprise; adding to them, grafting, inserting, knitting new pieces into the existing built fabric is endlessly stimulating.” —Françoise Astorg Bollack

This book focuses on difficulties and opportunities in revitalization of old, derelict or abandoned buildings into a library and investigates the transformation of buildings which originally had a different purpose. The publication shows worldwide best practice examples from different types of libraries in historic environments, both urban and rural, while maintaining a focus on sustainability concerning the architecture and interior design.

UnDoing Buildings: Adaptive Reuse and Cultural Memory discusses one of the greatest challenges for twenty-first-century society: what is to be done with the huge stock of existing buildings that have outlived the function for which they were built? Their worth is well recognised and the importance of retaining them has been long debated, but if they are to be saved, what is to be done with these redundant buildings? This book argues that remodelling is a healthy and environmentally friendly approach. Issues of heritage, conservation, sustainability and smartness are at the forefront of many discussions about architecture today and adaptive reuse offers the opportunity to reinforce the particular character of an area using up-to-date digital and construction techniques for a contemporary population. Issues of collective memory and identity combined with ideas of tradition, history and culture mean that it is possible to retain a sense of continuity with the past as a way of creating the future. UnDoing Buildings: Adaptive Reuse and Cultural Memory has an international perspective and will be of interest to upper level students and professionals working on the fields of Interior Design, Interior Architecture, Architecture, Conservation, Urban Design and Development.

...Discusses issues and problems concerning building reuse, such as outdated building codes, inadequate policies, lack of tax incentives, etc...

For thousands of years humans have experimented with various methods of waste disposal—from burning and burying to simply packing up and moving in search of an unscathed environment. Habits of disposal are deeply ingrained in our daily lives, so casual and continual that we rarely ever stop to ponder the big-picture effects on social, spatial and ecological orders. Rethinking the ways in which we produce, collect, discard and reuse our waste, whether it’s materials, spaces or places, is essential to ensure a more feasible future. Waste Matters: Adaptive Reuse for Productive Landscapes presents a series of historical and contemporary design ideas that reimagine a range of repurposed materials at diverse scales and in various contexts by exploring methods of hacking, disassembly, reassembly, recycling, adaptive reuse and preservation of the built environment. Waste Matters will inspire designers to sample and rearrange bits of artifacts from the past and present to produce culturally relevant and ecologically sensitive materials, objects, architecture and environments.