Architecture Commons^™

Country Tech: The Adaptive Reuse Of A Former Theatre In The Catskill Mountains, Isimamwen Imarhiagbe, Calvin O. Walters Jr., Cheriyah Wilmot

Publications and Research

Our research centers on the birth, life, abandonment, and a proposed adaptive reuse of an early 20th-century former social hall theatre in Shandaken, a former company town for manufacturing furniture, within the Catskill Mountains. Adaptive reuse involves renovating a building or space by repurposing the existing structure and inserting a contemporary design/function. The building housed a variety of purposes throughout its lifetime: a theater, social hall, bowling alley, artist studios, and residential apartments. Our proposal is to return the building to its original purpose as a social hall, performance space, and a flex space for year-round use for art exhibits, …

Overview Of Hybrid Financial Instruments And Investment Leverage Enablers For Cultural Heritage Adaptive Reuse, Tracy Pickerill

Articles

Cultural heritage adaptive reuse investment strategies involve long-term, sometimes perpetual, investment horizons, which necessitate the integration of sustainable funding mechanisms. In order to achieve participatory circular human prosperity, the sustainable finance movement must re-evaluate investment leverage approaches including value creation models, the design of hybrid financial instruments, analytical decision-making frameworks,collaborative social enterprise structures, impact performance metrics and evolving mindsets.

In the context of this overview of financial and non-financial instruments, cultural heritage adaptive reuse activities include:

• Adaptive reuse of cultural built heritage structures

• Energy retrofit of cultural built heritage structures

• Protection and management of natural eco-systems;

• …

Investment Leverage For Adaptive Reuse Of Cultural Heritage, Tracy Pickerill

Articles

This article tracks the design of a panoptic toolkit of complementary financial (grant and endowment, tax, debt and equity) and non-financial (regulation, real estate, risk mitigation and performance, capacity building, impact metric and digital network) instruments, designed to leverage capital investment and engender collaborative partnerships, to encourage investment capital to flow to cultural heritage adaptive reuse activities.

The Industrial Park: A Landscape-Based Vision For The Turners Falls Canal District, Josiah Simpson

Landscape Architecture & Regional Planning Studio and Student Research and Creative Activity

This design study examines the history and economic context that defines Turners Falls as a de-industrialized mill town. It reviews the social, economic, locational, physical, and historical obstacles the town has faced redeveloping the mill buildings within its Canal District and proposes a landscape-based approach for addressing redevelopment. Landscape redevelopment is offered as an alternative to traditional redevelopment of buildings for non-affluent mill towns, like Turners Falls, because the costs associated with landscape upgrades are much lower and can provide multifunctional and multi-purpose spaces for many types of people. Additionally, it is a pathway for inviting community involvement that allows …

Material Density: A Radical Approach To Adaptive Reuse, Madeline Laberge

Architecture Senior Theses

Through disassembly and reconfiguration, this thesis proposes to create new relationships between existing materials and their typical forms, using a material-focused densification specific to the site. This radical approach to adaptive reuse contrasts the current over-designed and over-theorized architectural projects, aiming to use a pragmatic approach in how materials on historical sites can be reclaimed. Situated on a site with forgotten architecture, the building’s “ruins provide the incentive for restoration” where one can re-immerse themselves with the grand, sublime space. But sites like these are typically demolished for new construction due to costly rehabilitation, with new designs ignoring or not …

The Industrial Park: A Landscape-Based Vision For The Turners Falls Canal District, Josiah Simpson

Landscape Architecture & Regional Planning Masters Projects

This design study examines the history and economic context that defines Turners Falls as a de-industrialized mill town. It reviews the social, economic, locational, physical, and historical obstacles the town has faced redeveloping the mill buildings within its Canal District and proposes a landscape-based approach for addressing redevelopment. Landscape redevelopment is offered as an alternative to traditional redevelopment of buildings for non-affluent mill towns, like Turners Falls, because the costs associated with landscape upgrades are much lower and can provide multifunctional and multi-purpose spaces for many types of people. Additionally, it is a pathway for inviting community involvement that allows …

An Evidence-Based Approach To Designing Low-Income Housing Communities, Kaitlin Ward

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

In the field of interior design, functionality and aesthetics are combined to create spaces that are beautiful, but also serve a variety of purposes. Broadly categorized into residential and commercial sectors, interior design considers the health and wellness of users in a space, and strives to improve the standard of living. Quality interior design is often treated as a luxury afforded only to the wealthy, although the field can and should be applied to benefit a wider demographic. Intelligent design and space planning can be used as a tool for community-building, especially among populations often overlooked due to reasons such …

The Ottoman Han: Recovery Of A Lost Typology, Asli Germirli

Architecture Thesis Prep

This thesis will focus on the architectural interventions for the 17th century structure of Buyuk Valide Han. The project will be shaped through the multiple lenses of Critical Regionalism, urban planning, conservation and sustainability. The aim is to add value to the Hans District and to revive the commercial and cultural identity through the preservation of the older structures and the introduction of modern architecture.

Feasibility Study For The Adaptive Reuse Of The Colt Estate Stable, Julie A. Braid

Historic Preservation Capstone Projects

This capstone is a feasibility study for the adaptive reuse of the Colt estate stable in Bristol, RI by analyzing two possible adaptive reuse scenarios. The two scenarios the report focuses on is a special event venue and a horse stable and training facility. The goal of the report is to examine which scenario would be a feasible option for the existing structure while maintaining its historical integrity. Feasibility was determined by analyzing and assessing factors such as assumptions and limitations that are associated with the structure and the adaptive reuse process. Both adaptive reuse scenarios were examined individually to …

Revitalizing Cities: Adaptive Reuse Of Historic Structures, Sara E. Sharpe

Mid-America College Art Association Conference 2012 Digital Publications

Adaptive reuse is employed when revitalizing an existing infrastructure while maintaining important aspects of the cultural architectural heritage and promoting sustainability. The option to turn away from older structures and build new is a large problem in cities such as Detroit. Historic preservationists are trained to observe a structure’s potential before walking away. Meanwhile interior designers obtain the skills to rejuvenate such buildings for a new use. Case studies have shown the benefits of these two professions teaming up to apply adaptive reuse on historic structures for modern purposes. By studying the creative space planning methods and historic preservations standards …

Community Reclamation: The Hybrid Building, Laura Maynard

Architecture Theses

Reclamation of a city involves reusing abandoned buildings in conjunction with new construction. These negative spaces of disuse generated by a changing infrastructure are often overlooked or destroyed. If they are instead viewed as positive spaces for reuse, a city’s infrastructure and its residents can adapt and grow.

Recognizing these newly positive spaces produces a chance to examine what social needs of the community are not being met. Pushing the modern concept of the hybrid building creates a unique opportunity; flexibility of use derived from flexibility of space. A community building can best serve the social needs of its residents …

A Return To Manning The Post: The Adaptive Reuse Of Publically Owned Fire Control Stations From The Second World War, Donald J. Sevigny

Historic Preservation Theses

This project examines the adaptive reuse potential of World War II-era fire control stations situated on public lands. The goal was to show the economic feasibility of reusing these derelict structures while simultaneously raising awareness of the scarce resources from our nation’s recent past. This has been done by conducting existing conditions assessments, forming scopes of work, attaining cost estimates, and creating cost analyses on three individual stations within two case studies in the northeastern United States. The cost analyses were based on Donovan Rypkema’s pro forma spreadsheet templates from the Feasibility Assessment Manual for Reusing Historic Buildings. Through this …

Pendulum Performing Arts Center: Adaptive Reuse Design Of The Historic Court Square Building In Springfield, Massachusetts, Lindsay M. Schnarr

Masters Theses 1911 - February 2014

Drawing from the ongoing revitalization efforts in the Western Massachusetts post-industrial city of Springfield, Massachusetts, this adaptive reuse project aims to bring the public back to the city center by providing a common space for cultural connections. Sensitivity to preservation of the historic fabric of the existing Court Square Building is blended with the transformative potential of introducing architectural expressions of dance theory to create a school and theater for the performing arts. The study of balance between opposing, yet complimentary forces, as they exist in architecture and dance, creates a conceptual interplay that guides the design of this project. …

Reworking: Transforming A Textile Mill, Jennifer M. Hayes

Masters Theses 1911 - February 2014

This project examines the adaptive reuse of a disused nineteenth century textile mill building in Gilbertville, Massachusetts. While the original form and structure of the building type was conducive to maximum production of goods, contemporary uses require different forms. Although other mills in New England have been reused for housing, museums, or professional offices, my goal was to propose a program that related to the building’s original function as a place where people worked. Because the unemployment rate is rising in Massachusetts in 2010, I propose that the mill be reused as a training center where people learn green building …

Deregulatory Space: A Project To Revitalize Mccarren Pool, Thomas Reeves

Architecture Senior Theses

"By embracing the deregulatory, informal, and indeterminate production of space, architecture may operate as framework for the inhabitation of public space that both enables and demands public agency. As such, the architecture operates to assist rather than prescribe, relying on the energy of the general public to construct a more dynamic and social-viable public space: one that is constantly in flux."

Re-Generation, Noel Brady

Articles

Critical analysis of Sandyford Office Park, Dublin, Ireland

Site As A Measurement Of Place, Creighton Willis

Architecture Thesis Prep

"PLacement and relationship of a city within its physical environment is a dynamic process that is revealed through its architecture and constructed (designed) interventions. The lift of this dynamic process deposits cicatrices, inscriptions, footprints, and artifacts within the city and place. These events inscribed in the landscape of a city reveal this changing relationship of city-environment. The contention is that a new construction within the city can actively manifest the current city landscape while also revealing the history of the place."