Adaptive re-use projects require an understanding of the logic of the existing structure, as well as the logic of the program which will replace it. Using a recent competition entry as a case study, I question the assumptions of historians about the integrity of typology and position adaptive re-use as a driver of urban sustainability and rebirth.
Building typology is a topic of much dispute in architecture and urban planning communities – it is the very basis of some architectural movements, while others deny it’s influence entirely. Typology is defined throughout this essay is as the taxonomic classification of a building’s physical characteristics such as basic forms, site configuration and scale, as they relate to the era, culture and environment in which they arise[1]. Architectural historian John E. Hancock has this to say about the role of typology in the psyche of the designer:
The works of the past always influence us, whether or not we care to admit it, or to structure an understanding of how that influence occurs. The past is not just that which we know, it is that which we use, in a variety of ways, in the making of new work…. The typology argument today asserts that despite the diversity of our culture there are still roots of this kind which allow us to speak of the idea of a library, a museum, a city hall or a house. The continuity of these ideas of type, such as they are, and the esteemed examples which have established their identity and assured their continued cultural resonance, constitute an established line of inquiry in which new work may be effectively grounded.
- John E. Hancock[2]
Hancock’s first statement is indisputable– we are, of course, inherently influenced by the history of our built environment. We design in response to and in reaction to the architecture we have experienced, and our design lexicon is populated by familiar precedents. The quote above also asserts that there is some architectural essence to a structure, which is inseparable from its prescribed use. He presumes that there is something inherent to buildings which define them as House, Library, School, Bank and so on. However, the practice of adaptive reuse complicates the integrity of “the typology argument”. This ambiguous territory is where questions of the relationship between form and program and between material and meaning arise. How to typologically categorize a factory when it is no longer used as a factory? This essay will explore adaptive reuse and the process of designing with ambiguous typologies, using insights from literature, history and the process of designing a competition entry for a children’s centre amid the ruins of a pottery factory in Lombardy region of Italy.
Imagine the typology of a building as a set of instructions for a game, signalling the behaviours and activities which are appropriate for the context. Adaptive reuse can be as straightforward as playing chess on a checkerboard: nothing has to change physically, but there is an agreement between the players to call the board something else and permit a different set of moves. An example of this straightforward conversion from one use to another would be Sir John Soane’s Museum in London. The museum hasn’t significantly changed from its configuration as Soane’s residence, save for the front room being reprogrammed to act as a ticket booth and gift shop, and portions of the building becoming back-of-house[1]. Soane was exceptional in the way he fashioned his home environment, and the house already resembled a museum, so the while the building is typologically a traditional nineteenth-century townhouse, the renovations and façade changes during and after Soane’s ownership of the suite changes the rules for its inhabitation. Other adaptive reuse projects are more like taking that checkerboard and using it to play Monopoly: it could work, the boards are similar, but a lot of the information would need to be communicated through means external of the board (new instructions), and the board would have to be modified to provide new information. This means a fluid approach to typology is required to accommodate a new use, which runs counter to Hancock’s argument that each type building is essentially what it does. Instead, it suggests a model of typology which is more transient and flexible than previously theorized. This concept of a building having enough flexibility to accommodate a variety of disparate programs over the span of its life can be a helpful tool in making the fabric of cities more sustainable. In established urban centres around the world, an increase in populations and resultant demand for housing and commercial properties has resulted in city-builders moving to occupy buildings in a manner which defies their original typology. This approach is exhibited across geographic zones and across a variety of building types, but the case studied within this essay will focus on the reuse of factories and industrial buildings. As the quest for urban density continues, the rezoning of former commercial or industrial lands to mixed-use are purported to increase[2]. This phenomenon is not unique to current urban migration patterns which support the shift from industry-focused to residential- and commerce-focused zoning and construction but is a product of each shift in urban societal structure.
While typology plays an essential role in informing a designer’s repository of architectural precedents, changing ideals may mean that users no longer rely on once-familiar forms to intuit a building’s use. Whether or not this is progress is yet to be seen, but it certainly does change the contemporary landscape. Adaptive reuse provides a meaningful direction for new work which does not rely on typology, and rather gleans information from its surroundings and future users.
2.1. Theory
2.1.1. Respecting Typology
The adaptive reuse of buildings has a storied history which is still actively developing. In Rome there are a number of examples of Christianized temples, in which places of worship from the 2nd and 3rd century were adjusted centuries later to suit the developing image of the Catholic Church. In the nineteenth century, France’s chief inspector of Historical Monuments, architect Eugène Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc, made a case for the repurposing of historical French buildings, namely those of the Gothic persuasion. He stated “…the best way of preserving a building is to find a use for it, and then to satisfy so well the needs dictated by that use that there will never be any further need to make any further changes in the building”[3]. He goes on to state the necessity to see the restoration through the eyes of the original architect, and for materials and artisans who are capable of recreating the effects of the original building. The part of Viollet-le-Duc’s approach to the reinvigoration of historical buildings which was the subject of harsh criticism from contemporaries was his penchant for revision, destroying parts of the current building in pursuit of ‘restoration’ to the image of a fictitious original state of existence. John Ruskin and his student William Morris were also enchanted by ancient buildings – in 1877 Morris founded Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings (SPAB)[4]. Ruskin and Morris believe that the preservation of a historic building rejected destruction of any kind, instead embracing the traces of lived histories left on buildings of the past. There are elements of both Viollet-le-Duc’s and Ruskin’s approach in contemporary adaptive reuse, but decidedly more of Viollet-le-Duc’s. While elements of a building’s past life can be powerful, they are treated as elements to be curated, warping the narrative to suit the new usage.
2.1.2. Rejecting Typology
In On Typology, Rafael Moneo outlines three twentieth-century movements which broke from the traditional—perhaps ‘Hancockian’—conception of typology. Moneo sees Corbusier and the Bauhaus as the first currents in a wave of typology deniers: Le Corbusier’s mechanistic inspiration on the Bauhaus resulted in Mies van der Rohe’s Modernism, which posited spatial composition as the driver for all other design decisions; the programmatic rationalizations of Functionalism soon followed suit. Le Corbusier’s preoccupation with mass production led to an architecture which rejected typology as a response to site and activity and instead encouraged a mode of design dictated by aesthetic rules which were applicable to any building and any function: a universal system. Van der Rohe’s design approach was to create space first and address programmatic concerns later. Moneo states, “In constructing his building, he seizes this space and in doing so he constructs a building, characterized not by its use – as a school, hospital, church, etc. in the manner of the nineteenth century - but a “space” in which an activity is produced only later… The space is simply made available, it could be a church as well as a school. Mies was disturbed neither by functions nor materials; he was a builder of form-space.”[5]. Functionalism, where spatial maneuvers are solely extensions of the building’s purpose, rejected the historicism of typology. They instead leaned into the aesthetics of function, neglecting the lessons of centuries of iterative building forms which evolved not least of all to serve their prescribed function.
None of these approaches feel true to what adaptive reuse in contemporary architecture is trying to achieve, but each bring something of value in their scepticism that typology is something immovable and inflexible: Le Corbusier was trying to build a machine for living, and between adaptive architecture and BIM modeling of integrated systems, we are getting close to architectural design as machine design. Mies’ practice of sculpting with negative space and using a limited material palette reflects the minimalism of contemporary works such as Zaha Hadid’s MAXXI. While his disregard for materiality is not a suitable approach for adaptive reuse, where the relationship between existing and new materials requires careful consideration, the overall design process is very contemporary. The Functionalist belief that program is the main priority resonates with a humanistic attitude which is becoming prevalent, especially for contemporary campuses designed to serve and delight the students and workers.
2.1.3. Reconciling Typology
Rather than focus on what a building should be, these discussions point toward what a building should do: it should work as seamlessly as a machine, as elegantly as a sculpture and as intuitively as another human. By considering whether a design for a new work fulfils the needs of the users, the designer is freed from the dictates of the initial typology of a building. This allows adaptive reuse to fulfil the role of whatever is lacking in its community. That a building was once a factory is irrelevant if a community no longer industrial; If the building can be adapted to host a program more beneficial, any architectural scheme to make it useful for that purpose is the right design.
2.2. Design - Unipol Competition Case Study
Figure 1(above): Ground floor site plan of the proposed Kid's Factory.
Figure 2 (left): Landscaping materials suggest which activities may be appropriate for different areas.
2.2.1. Context
Laveno-Mombello is one point of the constellation of lakeside towns which trace the shoreline of the Lombardy region in Northern Italy. The town is nestled in the crook of two expansive hills which frame the harbour to Lake Maggiore. A small population of 8991 people animate the streets, buildings and boardwalk of Laveno-Mombello. The traditional village has a built history of churches, train stations, an extensive library which services the region and a handful of factories to the southeast of the rail corridor. More recently, design competitions for modern condos and hotel projects along the shoreline has been part of an attempt to put this tiny inlet on the map. The pottery factory was initially built as a glassmaking workshop and changed use in 1856, hosting over a century of ceramic industry production and artisanship. Peat and lumber from the nearby forest fuelled the kilns[6]. A sprawling presence in the urban fabric, the premises of the pottery take up a giant triangular swatch of urban fabric to the southwest of the downtown. The front gate and a suite of entrance buildings gained protected heritage status due to the stature of their architect, Piero Portaluppi. Portaluppi (seen above in his living room in 1957) was a Milanese architect and academic who designed the buildings in the 1920’s for the Italian Ceramics Society[7]. The closure of the pottery in 1997 was a result of an increasingly global manufacturing chain very different from the economic conditions when the pottery opened 141 years prior. In recent years, there has been a revival of artisanal ceramic craft in the area, with the International Museum of Ceramic Design in nearby Cerro becoming a hotspot for Lombardy tourism. The goal of the new children’s programming in Laveno-Mombello is an effort to parlay that international interest into a reinvigorated community for families and visitors alike.
2.2.2. Design approach
One of the strongest ecological arguments for adaptive reuse is the adage that the greenest building is the one already standing. With that in mind, it made sense to retain the majority of the existing structure onsite (see Fig. 3). The front buildings’ heritage status necessitated a light hand, and therefore those buildings are only slated for minor restorations to make them safe to inhabit and to do justice to Portoluppi’s twentieth-century industrial Italian design. This main building is designated as the ‘adult’ building, and thus makes use of more formal finishes including the original marble, plaster and travertine palette, and is host to all administrative and pedagogical offices. The subsidiary structures in the front courtyard are slated to serve as a visitor centre, a garden shed and a storage for camping and recreational supplies.
Beyond the administrative buildings, a more liberal demolition approach is taken, completely stripping away the flimsy additional stories and disjointed roofscapes which characterized the gradual expansion of the factory. The column grid is rationalized to unify the patchwork of additions over the years into one giant shed structure, outfitted with a new sawtooth roof. The roof refers to the original structure and provides ample diffused daylighting to the areas designated for creative and active play. Spaces which are programmed for more intense focus and concentration, such as academics and athletics, are have more controlled directional daylighting which can be controlled to allow for projector use and dramatic performances.
The grid serves as a basis for new glazed partition walls and structural walls both orthogonal and elliptical in shape, which serve to delineate and organize new program areas. Upon walking through the lobby of the formal administration building, a large set of doors open to the Play Foyer (Fig. 9), an airy, colourful vaulted space with access to a climbing wall and amply-padded tumbling trampoline, the cloakroom, and a curtain wall leading outside to the terrace. The industrial trusses and vegetation which pop up here and there in the building keep the space from feeling too precious and encourage exploration and imagination. Children need spaces which they can explore, environments in which give implicit permission to test the limits and “mess up” the space, to borrow terminology from Learning Landscapes by Sharon Stines. Stines identifies nine pairs of contrasting elements that are essential to any play environment such as Accessible and Inaccessible, Active and Passive, Challenge/ Risk and Repetition/Security and Hard and Soft. [8] Using this framework of design considerations can help clarify the values of a design for the aspects of the landscape which the children, teachers, researchers and caretakers would interact with. These elements build a common language between the goals of the designers and the educators, such as issues of safety and security, to design learning environments that can be stimulating, linked with the natural world and safe for children to run free in.
Figure 5: Elements demolished or renovated depending on material and structural integrity.
Figure 6: The factory complex is streamlined and reorganized to support new kid-friendly programs.
Figure 7: New dividers to frame academic, creative, athletic and administrative programming.
2.2.3. Room to Grow – A Material Approach
Piero Portaluppi’s careful attention to materiality in a building as pragmatic as a factory office was an inspiration to the design response for the future campus which would stand on the pottery’s grounds. Mapping out the materials which the students would interact with was a practical sensory exercise for informing the design approach (see Fig. 1). It was important to the design that the Kid’s Factory be a place in which children aren’t stifled from using their natural creativity to navigate their surroundings. Material communicates with the users of buildings more directly than any other architectural tool or tactic, especially when they are smaller and closer to the ground[9]. The sound, touch, smell of a surface can tell a kid whether it is a good spot for digging, running, wrestling, inventing a new sport with their friends. Since the site is walled on all sides, it was important for the space to incorporate lush vegetation and warm finishes like terra cotta: the traditional Italian typology of the walled formal garden would not serve a group of children’s needs. Metal and concrete are used to provide structure (the gates, the fence, the building), terra cotta and brick provide durable intermediate program-specific wayfinding, and vegetation in the form of lawns and gardens soften the edges and provide forgiving surfaces for children to play without getting cuts and scrapes. The decision to adhere to the existing footprint of the site meant that the materials should also speak of the history of the place: the incorporation of terra cotta tiles and brick was a nod to the ceramics past of the site, as well as the burnt sienna colouring of the tiled roofs dotting Laveno-Mombello’s hillsides.
3.0 Conclusion
Adaptive reuse requires a nuanced understanding of a building’s history and current role in its community, but in order for the building to fulfil a new use for a new set of users, it is essential to be critical and creative in the addition, subtraction and general divergence from the initial structure. These changes are what define the rules and ideals of the new usage, and can either do justice or a disservice to the building’s former function. In the case of Laveno-Mombello’s Kid’s Factory, the structure of the former factory provided strong bones to build upon, while exposing just enough of the skeleton to inspire imagination. By striking a balance between Ruskin’s preservation and Viollet-le-Duc’s revisionism, the design sharpens the powerful elements of the existing but uses bold formal interventions to infuse whimsy into necessary practical elements for the new life of the children’s centre and academy. The material choices also serve to reflect the past while inviting the future, with a mix of traditional and contemporary applications of familiar materials to the area. While typology remains a force in each adaptive reuse design, the flexibility of program within form means the future uses of our build environment are near-limitless.
[1] Sir John Soane’s Museum. “Our History”. About Sir John Soane’s Museum. Accessed digitally Feb. 2019. [2] Wilson, Corey A. “Adaptive Reuse of Industrial Buildings in Toronto, Ontario: Evaluating Criteria for Determining Building Selection.” Queen’s University: Kingston, Ontario, Canada, 2010. [3] Plevoets, Bie & Van Cleempoel, Koenraad. “Adaptive reuse as an emerging discipline: an historic survey.” Reinventing architecture and interiors: a socio-political view on building adaptation (pp. 13-32). 2013, London: Libri Publishers. [4] Ibid. [5] Moneo, Rafael. “On Typology”. Oppositions 13. MIT Press, Summer 1978, Cambridge, MA. p.32
[6] “Site” Kid’s Factory Brief. Unipol Group, 2018.
[7] “Biography.” Fondazione Piero Portaluppi. 2015, Milan. Accessed digitally Feb. 2019.
[8] tine, Sharon. Landscapes for Learning. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 1997, New York. ISBN: 0-471-16222-1. pp. 24 - 41
[9] Dudek, Mark. Kindergarten Architecture: Space for the Imagination. 1st ed. E&FN SPON, 1996, London.