WHAT IS IT ?

Adaptive reuse is the process of restoring buildings for new uses and modern functions, different from the original purposes but useful for present-day needs and for the community. That gives to a building a continued use and helps it by keeping it up with the times.

For example, converting an old church into a restaurant, an old train station into an office space, or an old windmill into a home. Adaptive reuse brings everywhere new life by converting buildings into something useful for the surrounding, student housings or community centres. 

Most of times, a historic restoration involves restoring a building component or feature to its original condition. The problem is that some agencies may provide taxes or other incentives to historic preservation projects, and there are also some limits and, potentially, additional costs.

Adaptive reuse solves this problem by updating a structure not for its previous purpose, but to a new design that will enable the structure to be used in an entirely new way.

HOW DOES IT EFFECT THE COMMUNITY?

This architecture approach offers a lot of advantages.
The most important are:

1)  it preserves the infrastructures’ cultural sides
2)  help to slow down the urban development, prefering to reuse the old buildings as houses, shops, cinema, museums, etc..
3)  it reduce the construction materials, avoiding the waste and the overconsume

The most important point is about the community. Adaptive reuse allows people who live in big cities (like Rome, Milan, NYc and so on) to live peacefully together, spending more time with friends, family and loved ones.

Frequently the old factories, store houses and even jails are provided with new specific furnitures to make the spaces more comfortable for their new lives. Making the infrastructures more enjoyable with chairs, tables, shop, stands or music helps people to stay more time in this reused building and create more bonds with the others over time.

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HOW IS IT DONE?

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Adaptive reuse consists in taking an old structure or a real estate and trasforming it into something new by manteinance and re-organization.
But nothing comes from nowhere; organization is really important to give to a structure a new life, so the community has to focus on some crucial points like:

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; it’s important to ensure that the old structures are good candidate for adaptive reuse. Skipping this step to save on costs and time could make those places dangerous and later increase the restoration costs. Along with the assessment, you should research local zoning laws to ensure your idea is viable.

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-Assess the building

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-Survey the neighborhood

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; survey the area around your location it’s also important. Will the community be interested in the type of building you’re planning? Consider pedestrian patterns, transportation options, and surrounding homes and businesses before signing off on the project.

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; even if adaptive reuse has lower costs than building from the ground up, it can be expensive. You need to have a right estimate of how much your project will cost, and then you can determine whether or not those costs align with your ideal budget.

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-Determine the budget

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; a specialized staff is essential in a restoration project. If your project is about a historic building, you may want to consult a historic conservation professional or the local preservation office to determine if any of your changes harm the historical integrity of the structure.

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-Hire the right team

; during the planning process, determine what elements you’ll reuse or replace. In the best adaptive reuse projects, every element that can be reused is reused to respect the building’s historic features and materials. Consult the history of the structure to determine which areas have been recently fixed or consistently degrade.

-Create plans

-Begin construction

; when working with an old building, it’s essential to take special care to avoid damaging or destroying viable materials. Avoid harsh surface treatments or haphazard demolition approaches—these can irreparably damage parts of the building that you may want to be visible in the finished product.

ADAPTIVE REUSE EXAMPLES

Some of the most famous adaptive reuse projects are the Tate Moder Museum in London, the “Muséé d’Orsay” in Paris, the MoMa PS1 in New York.

In Italy too there are examples of adaptive reuse, like Gucci headquarters in Milan.

Another adaptive reuse example in Italy is the Cuneo-Gesso station, built in the 1870, is located near a small town. It was the first station in that city and it connected Cuneo to Turin.
In 1960 it was closed until the 1980. Later, in 2007 there were some
maintenance interventions because the structure was ruined by the time.

It resulted in a excellent example of adaptive reuse, because in the building transformation project there haven't been any extensions or substantial edits but the pre-existing rooms have been adapted to host the new needs.

Now inside the building there are also bars, restaurants and places where it's possible to set up live shows. Farther, nowadays to reuse also train binaries, there have been created some multi-seats bicycles which slide on the railway in order to speed up visitors transport.