4 minute read
Problem Statement
caused multiple factories to close down.
❖ Louvre, originally a palace built in 1204, went through numerous tear-downs and rebuilds with no consistency in building design. However, 1989 it was eventually adaptively reused into a museum by I. M. Pei, with a design that respects the urban infrastructure of classic typology - compositional strategy and historical axes to name a few ways - reusing and adapting it into a new pedestrian network.
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Rehabilitation The Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission opts to define rehabilitation as the “act or process of making possible a compatible use fo a property through repairs, alterations, and additions, while preserving those portions or features which convey its historical, cultural or architectural values. ”[5]
Retrofitting The City of Melbourne’s definition of retrofitting states it to be more technical and system-oriented. Retrofitting also refers to changes in a building, but these changes are meant to improve energy efficiency, technological aspects, and water efficiency in the building - among other facets of building system design.
PROBLEM STATEMENT
The world population is growing constantly, estimates by the World Population Clock to reach 7.8 billion people in 2020, at the growth rate of 1.05%.[6] Riyadh is no exception to the rule apart from residents of the city expanding their families, Riyadh, as a capital city, welcomes opportunity seekers from around the country, and even the world, every day.
In light of growing trends, more and more cities are moving towards the skyline, building taller and moving further out from the fringes of their own boundaries. Riyadh’s city limits grow farther away from its city centers every year, welcoming new developments, new construction and new residents. All this occurs, however, at the cost of the old, original centers of Riyadh to decrease in value, in quality of life, and amenities, and municipal attention. In short, these centers are being abandoned, not held to the same standards as the newer parts of the city, and left disused. These volumes of concrete and masses of steel are left, either disused, or to be demolished later.
Neither of these outcomes are sustainably viable.
There is also the case of environmental and economic misuse; in the case of the environment, the climate, and in light of our collective, ongoing effort towards sustainability.
There is also a waste of natural and built resources - the land is not efficiently used, the infrastructure a drain on the city with no give-back, and so forth. In terms of the environment, the state of disrepair may contribute to not only visual pollution, but also air pollution.
The lack of maintenance may cause the building materials to disintegrate and react in a way that negatively impacts the environment. “Atmospheric corrosion of metals and their alloys is very common in the [...] city environment due to the [...] concentration of corrosive pollutants in air. It results in destruction of various materials, especially metals and their alloys. ”[7] The building would also contribute to the urban heat island (UHI) effect, with no human activity or intervention on the roof surfaces of or around the buildings, to reduce it. Meanwhile, the continuous push onwards and outwards for the city’s growth, would cause more and more asphalt and absorptive materials to be set out and built, further increasing the UHI effect. Additionally, in Riyadh, In some instances, trees are torn down to make way for buildings, pavements, and so on - this exacerbates the problem even more.
There is another scenario to be considered: that in which there is initiative to revitalize a certain neighborhood or district, by introducing new activities and a new design to it - but the conditions for such a proposal are that first something has to be demolished. This also brings about negative consequences: extra energy waste, more scrapped material, as well as a large CO2 emissions for this process, all of which are practically unnecessary, in face of the fact that adaptive reuse may require less funding, and definitely have less of a harmful impact on the environment.
In the case of economy, cities face a loss of potential jobs and housing in areas where a building is disused. There is a logical disconnect when it comes to the public and private sectors’ single minded focus on investing in brand new projects and creating new economies for districts - when they could instead be redirecting their efforts for development into communities with existing means, infrastructure and networks that would require less expense and have a better chance of positive turn out, commercial interest, and therefore profit.
Additionally, in regards to disuse, these abandoned spaces can attract obstacles to social safety - crimes now have greater chances of flourishing. There is also the fact that the heritage of the built environment is not being respected or preserved, and the positive identity and characteristics of the community become as lost to the people as the buildings themselves.
Community identity is another aspect of this problem, and is heavily affected by such circumstances in regards to visual representation and aesthetics: a decrepit building is not good to look at, and does not connect positive tags of pride and identity with neither outsiders and the neighborhood, nor neighborhood residents and their environment.
A study by Main & Sandoval shows how a community can behave when it holds positive tags for its ‘place identity’ , which is, in this case, centered around a park: influenced by [...] specific physical, social, and cultural elements [...], study participants attempt to maintain identities
