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Precedents: Europe
EUROPE
Netherlands’ Office Building to Housing Conversion
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A program in the Netherlands to reuse abandoned office buildings was conceived in order to provide more housing units for residents. While multiple buildings were adaptively reused in this program, the report will be focusing on three, as shown highlighted below.
Table 1.3 The table above shows the Dutch conversion cases that were successfully completed.[44]
The redevelopment of these buildings was fast paced - from initial preliminary design, to completion of construction, the project simply took two years. This is because redevelopment started simultaneously with design - the building began to be stripped of most of its structural accessories, including means of vertical circulation.
Fig 1.12 Above is the building De Enk, before (left) and after (right) conversion.[45]
De Enk. This building was chosen for conversion due to its historical significance, its prime location - near the center of the city, and so within a good distance of amenities, services, and so forth, as well as the fact that it was cheap to buy.
Fig 1.12 Left is the aerial view and plan of the office before conversion, whereas the right shows a view and plan of the building after being converted into housing.[46]
Twentec. Given that the apartments were being redeveloped for a higher income bracket, the reuse extended to adapting the facade as well. The facade was given a makeover, using different materials, along with the addition of balconies in order to attract the target residents.
Fig 1.13 The left shows the view and plan of the office building before conversion; the middle and right show views and plans after being converted into housing.[47]
Granida. The location near the city centre and the image of the building were important success factors for this conversion. The reason this conversion was high cost was because the facade was altered, and high technicality in the structure had to be dealt with carefully during conversion.
Still, regardless of the additional costs in individual cases, the total cost of conversion still turned out to be lower than those for demolition and rebuilding from foundations up. The varying of conversion costs ranged from the lower bracket being achieved through very few changes to the facade and with the workings of an adaptable floor plan (these were usually cases where student housing was the residential use), to the higher bracket cost because of facade alterations and additions to the structure for more luxurious residential units.
An argument one finds often - not only in the Netherlands, but in other areas around the world, as well - is that older buildings should be demolished because they are not as sustainable as a newer building of today’s times. In light of this, the converted buildings in this program were studied, to understand whether or not the argument had weight.
It was seen, however, that the buildings’ performances were on par with buildings constructed today, not only fulfilling criteria in the standard Dutch building code, but also reaching comfort levels of residents’ expectations.
The process for conversion included assessment of buildings, in order to be able to budget accordingly and plan for reparation strategies - most problems were met with prepared methods, although some buildings did have mild issues of concrete deterioration and steel corrosion overlooked.
When it comes to the actual conversion of these office buildings, the process was both facilitated and hindered by the actual structure of the office buildings themselves:
● Facilitation: As the original typology of these buildings are built to stand loads many times larger than that of residential typologies, it’s actually possible to add on more floors to an office building when repurposing it to one for housing.
● Facilitation: Depending on the year the original buildings were built, the plans could be either easy or difficult to adapt - pre-1980s building did not have linear plans, and therefore created issues with regards to partition placement. However, buildings after the 1980s were found to be very easy to adapt due to their linear plans and repetitive column spans.
● Facilitation: Offices are built to handle more people per unit area, and therefore have an excessive amount of lifts for when reused to residential use. Extraneous elevator shafts can be easily adapted to host HVAC and MEP systems.
● Hindrance: However, residential flats required more vertical shafts for individual units of electricity and plumbing. For buildings that were constructed before 1965, the placement of shafts, once the penetration of floors was achieved, went on without problems. An issue did arise with a few buildings in the program that were built after 1965: change in the type of concrete between pre- and post-1965 in Dutch buildings allowed larger spans and therefore less columns. However, this type of concrete grew weaker after being cut/penetrated to place the shafts in. This was dealt with in due time with added reinforcements and cost.
● Hindrance: Another issue is that office buildings do not require the amount of acoustical privacy - as well as the fact that it did not meet the contemporary building code. Therefore, floating floors and suspended ceilings were added to the structure - as mentioned before, this would be something the structures were able to withstand with ease.
● Hindrance: While newer office buildings would not face this challenge, the buildings in the program did face it - the number of emergency stairs were not enough for contemporary housing, and therefore more stairs needed to be added.
Despite some of these issues and the expenses that came with them, the projects were financially feasible.
The results of the conversions of the program in its entirety can be seen in the table below, and can be concluded to be overall positive and feasible. This conversion project was not particularly unique in any way, proving that the process, scale of the program and types of buildings and the specific conversion (official to housing) can be universally applied, anywhere else in the world, with a predictably similar outcome.
Table 1.4 The table shows the opportunities defined by the cross-case analysis of the 15 cases.[48]
Spain’s Port Mahon Naval Hospital
The naval hospital architecture begun in the UK in the 1700s has since spread with the spread of British rule, across Europe and the USA. Naval hospitals were meant to be therapeutic architecture, combined with the classical style. The outcome of this combination “was intended not for the eyes of the sick and wounded, but for those who survived the rigours of service life and needed a home in their old age. ”[49] A shift in style throughout the centuries was observed: by the 1930s, naval hospitals implemented both Spanish Revival and Art Deco influences.
[50]
However, once the users - doctors, nurses, servicemen and women, and patients rescinded usage in the mid-20th century, different uses and treatments of these naval hospitals, with their unique histories and their cultural significance, rose to the surface. Some hospitals were converted for uses that were only in the interest of higher profit, disregarding the local needs of the community.
Eventually, a handful of organizations have introduced a conversion of hospitals to universities, while others reused the naval structures as shelters for the homeless, without much changes both within and without.
A grassroots coalition of Capitol Hill residents in Washington came together to start a fund for a naval hospital in Port Mahon, Spain. They aimed to bring to the table an educational center for children and adults alike, as well as a community center. Once the fund was approved, the residents of Port Mahon began to come in to volunteer the redevelopment of the building.
The collapsed roof was repaired by hand by some volunteers, tiles fixed back in their places, while other volunteers opted to plan a herbal garden. Another group went to work to clean the chemical residue still left behind by the hospital’s past.
For the reuse, British Ministries provided a masterplan, which were then revised by local community stakeholders.
