eyes ears and fingers on old buildings

There is a natural connection between sustainable design and historic preservation, one that is often overlooked. Building reuse and adaptation easily lend themselves to the ideals of green building, like lower embodied energy, longevity and cultural significance that promotes engaged users. In Essen, Germany, Architects from the Madako group have transformed an historic water tower into an imaginative space for living and working that showcases a fusion of old and new with lasting environmental considerations.
n its initial form, the Umbau Wasserturm (converted water tower) in Essen-Bredeney stood untouched under Germany’s ‘Denkmalschutz’ and ’Landschaftschutzgebiet’ – historic building protection and culturally significant landscape protection. These two designations prevented demolition and maintained the water tower as part of the heritage landscape. The potential of the structure remained untapped until 2002. Then, with little alteration to the exterior, the water tower was transformed into an eight-story, multi-use building. The ground level space serves as an office and the lofty top level unit offers conference space with views of the surrounding natural landscape.

Three two-story apartments welcome the sun with open, flowing floor plans and high ceilings. Natural daylighting, thermal mass and convective cooling are inherent building technologies that translate to the structure’s new functions.

The embodied energy in existing materials has been diluted through an extension of the structure’s viability. Through reuse and adaptation the cost of demolition, trucking and land filling debris, the manufacturing, transport and installation of new structural materials has been eliminated. The result is a quiet lesson in “stealth green” – reuse brings both ecological and cultural advantages.

Recycling discarded materials into new buildings and adapting disused structures to new uses is not just about sustainability – it is also about savvy innovation and stylish adaptation. Some architects build modular wonders from existing units (such as shipping containers). Others draw from recycled, found and local materials (or entire old buildings) to create aesthetically amazing designs that brilliantly blend old and new.

The project deals about the rehabilitation of an old flour-mill and an industrial building in lofts along the canal of Roubaix. The structure was in very bad shape, and is now open to let the natural light enlighten the flats. The project isn’t a single renovation but also questions the notion of housing and offers to each flat, an outside space, a loggia, a balcony or a terrace. The extension dropped on the roof creates terraces and offers outstanding views towards the town and the canal. The technical methods to restore the concrete structure lead to a work on the brutality of material.

http://saveindustrialbrooklyn.org/maps.html

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By Carolyn Sponza, AIA

Event: A Eulogy to the East River’s Lost Industrial Heritage
Speakers: Frank E. Sanchis, III, Senior Vice President, Municipal Art Society; Francis Morrone, writer, architectural historian; and a cast of various eulogists
Organizers: Municipal Art Society
Location: Urban Center, 06.27.06

This mock memorial brought together architects, historians, and New Yorkers to talk about their experiences in the vanishing NYC warehouses, factories, and shipyards. Buildings, like people, are “invariably missed when they are gone,” as Frank Sanchis, Senior Vice President at the Municipal Art Society (MAS), sadly noted. More than simply providing a look back, these narratives presented a platform to discuss how the public could be engaged in helping to save the rapidly disappearing industrial fabric of the city (much like the recent rally around Manhattan’s re-envisioned High Line).

Less of an opportunity to mourn, this program asked questions about the importance of retaining our industrial heritage. Often simply designed and dirty, these buildings are associated with a blue-collar existence that much of New York has turned its back upon. In order to save more buildings from destruction, political alliances should be strengthened to leverage historic designation, with more creative adaptive reuse solutions being implemented locally to motivate community action.

A number of NYC industrial buildings highlighted were included in the MAS exhibition, “Preservation on the Edge: Our Threatened East River Heritage—Six Months On…” Among the buildings profiled were the recently departed (or unequivocally altered) Greenpoint Terminal Market, Long Island City Power House, and Con Edison Power Station, and the imperiled Domino Sugar Refinery Building, Sohmer Piano Factory, and Austin Nichols & Co. Warehouse.

Kraanspoor (translated as craneway) is a light-weight transparent office building of three floors built on top of a concrete craneway on the grounds of the former NDSM (Nederlandsche Dok en Scheepsbouw Maatschappij) shipyard, a relic of Amsterdam’s shipping industry. This industrial monument, built in 1952, has a length of 270 meters, a height of 13,5 meters and a width of 8,7 meters. A street length and width. The new construction on top is the same 270 meters long, with a width of 13,8 meters, accentuates the length of Kraanspoor and the phenomenal expansive view of the river IJ. Fully respecting its foundation, the building is lifted by slender steel columns 3 meters above the crane way, appearing to float above the impressive concrete colossus.

The challenge of the design for OTH was to utilize the maximum allowable load of the existing craneway. The concrete craneway functions as a foundation, and carries the maximum possible weight of a three storey building, with an asymmetrical overhang on the water-side; this is due to the heavier load barring function for the former revolving cranes that cantilevered to this side. The light-weight building of steel construction made the light-weight floors necessary. By using a hollow Infra+ floor system, the piping and wiring are tucked away in the floor allowing for a maximum clear height.

The glass building is clear and simple in plan. The newly built construction is characterized by its transparent double-skin climate façade of glass: the outer layer of moveable motor-driven glasslouvers appear as lace-work around the building, the inner façade is of hinged timber windows with a full height from office floor to ceiling. This climate façade allows natural ventilation of the offices and acts as a buffer against heat in the summer and cold in the winter. The concreteInfra+ underfloor of only 70mm allows for concrete core activity. The water from the IJ river is pumped up and used for heating as well as cooling via a water pump.

The pre-existing facilities have been utilised in the building’s new function. The former four old stairwells still remain as entrance to the building and are foreseen with panorama lifts and new stairs. The two gangways/catwalks alongside the concrete craneway function as fire-escape routes. In the heart of the original concrete structure, underneath the new structure, is extensive archive/storage space.

Result of diligent labour and obstinate perseverance:

• The municipality does not demolish the craneway, adjusts the zoning plan, sees the possibilities a rising sun over shores of the gold coast may offer.

• The developers modify their position and build the quality building that we designed. A magical volume of three storeys, floating/lose above the existing craneway, the same 270 meters in length and 12.6 meters wide. Supplied with a moveable glass louver-façade. The building stands in the water, hangs above it, shows itself as transparent and is that entirely.. with a view of the largest waterway of Amsterdam.

• The consultants: are astonished.

Now that Kraanspoor is being preserved as industrial heritage and has a new function, I have a new dream: an adjacent urban plan in which the still remaining halls and slipways, production buildings and workshops are incorporated and receive a new function.

A seamless combination of old and new – industrial heritage and modern architecture in which the waterways are restored and the slipway determines the orientation. The entire place with its shipping industrial past has an intense energy. The object is to intertwine the old with the new, to preserve history, and not loose this energy.

In a small terrain of 16m width by 20m long in the middle of a flat Belgian landscape, raises a 30m high water tower built between 1938 and 1941 for and by the village of Steenokkerzeel. It has been in service until the beginning of the nineties and was used by the Nazis during the 2nd world war as a “tour de guete”.   In 2004 a procedure was filled to protect and preserve the building witch the Royal commission for the protection and preservation of monuments and sites accepted. The exterior of the tower was fully renovated to its initial state. Damaged concrete columns were repaired and painted, brick joints were completely removed and replaced and the windows in the floor top were enlarged.   The works for a complete renovation and conversion into a single family house started in 2007.  The program The program foresees two distinct profiles of users. The private and main user is the client,   a couple living at the tower daily. Once or twice a month, part of the building is rented for very exclusive events targeting management people looking for a place to make workshops, high profile companies that seek a unique place to meet top clients near by the airport. Every room is equipped with the latest IT technology, domotics and the possibility to install projectors virtually anywhere on the top floor.   Interior architecture  The preservation of existing concrete elements such as the main water conduct, concrete ceilings, concrete stairs and the 250.000 liters concrete water basin were essential to preserve the strong identity of the building.   Every visible concrete element inside was painted in dark grey in order to mark the old from the new. This choice works in both ways since it makes the contrast created makes both bright and dark stand out.   0 - Main entrance & garage (2 cars) 1 - Technical room, storage and utility 2 - Guest room & office An envelope inside the envelope. The combination of vertical and horizontal wengé surfaces delineates the guest’s bedroom area with its own bathroom. 3 -  Bathroom A central 4.5 meter high shower was created in the bathroom in order to maximize the water flow experience. Black tainted glass walls surround the walk in shower increasing the sense of intimacy. Textile as visual separation from the cupboards was introduced to create a balance with the other “hard” materials and enhance the room’s acoustics. 4 - Bedroom This circular room with a dome ceiling hosts a revolving stairs leading to the upper floor and a full monolithic mirror dressing witch reflects the surroundings and gradually disappears. Wengé wood flooring contrasts with the cold nature of the mirror surfaces. Light reflection on the wood bounces providing warm reddish tones on the walls. 5 - Living room, kitchen and dining room Impressive by its circular shape and large surface, the top floor affords some incredible vistas to the airplanes landing on the national airport just a quarter of a kilometer away. The elevator block integrates a rest room, a library, the cat house and a cloak room. Above the sculptural kitchen furniture, a steel bridge takes you to the terrace. 6 - Panoramic terrace The terrace provides a full panoramic view and is equipped with raised IPE wood flooring and a shower.Pictures by Jasmine Van Heve

An interesting piece in The New York Times last week, describes how cities in the US Rust Belt are now battling abandonment, decay and shrinkage by selling rundown houses for $1. The houses are being renovated by the hundreds, triggering citywide gentrification. The article, written by…

Architects Austin + Mergold have a proposal for how to reuse agricultural silos and other circular structures of the U.S. farm belt: it’s what they call A-House-In-A-Can.

Pitched for a farm in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, the project comes complete with a faux-Craiglist hard sell: “36-foot in diameter American grain dryer with 2000 SF single family starter home inside. Instantly assembled off-the-shelf 14 GA galvanized corrugated steel exterior a 2000 SF developer house inside. Optional greenhouse. Buy 5 get one free!!!”

The images are all you really need to see how it would work: an internal shell is slipped inside the grain silo, services are established shortly thereafter, and the client can then schedule a move-in date. In some ways, I’m reminded of Zecc Architecten’s project for a converted water tower in Holland, or even Piercy Conner’s Martello Tower Yrenovation. 

And while these study-models could use a bit more detail, in concept, they’re both delightfully absurd and inspiring. 

A thesis presentation performed as a series of metal cans extruded outward into models of inhabitable architecture… Cinema-In-A-Can. Library-In-A-Can. Gym-In-A-Can. Dome-In-A-Can Republic.

Salt Museum By Malcotti Roussey Architects.

Stationed in Salins-les-Bain and closed since 1962, this salt production site began a restoration process in 2006.  The addition of the giant rust block is amazing.  The interiors are beautiful, maintaining the original architecture and merging with modern concrete when necessary. Thanks ArchDaily!