ABSTRACT

UnDoing Buildings: Adaptive Reuse and Cultural Memory discusses one of the greatest challenges for twenty-first-century society: what is to be done with the huge stock of existing buildings that have outlived the function for which they were built? Their worth is well recognised and the importance of retaining them has been long debated, but if they are to be saved, what is to be done with these redundant buildings?

This book argues that remodelling is a healthy and environmentally friendly approach. Issues of heritage, conservation, sustainability and smartness are at the forefront of many discussions about architecture today and adaptive reuse offers the opportunity to reinforce the particular character of an area using up-to-date digital and construction techniques for a contemporary population. Issues of collective memory and identity combined with ideas of tradition, history and culture mean that it is possible to retain a sense of continuity with the past as a way of creating the future.

UnDoing Buildings: Adaptive Reuse and Cultural Memory has an international perspective and will be of interest to upper level students and professionals working on the fields of Interior Design, Interior Architecture, Architecture, Conservation, Urban Design and Development.

chapter 1|16 pages

Introduction

chapter 2|15 pages

Reading and Recognition

Landmarks of Memory

chapter 3|21 pages

The Perception of the Past

The Task of the Translator

chapter 4|20 pages

Site Specific Art

Unintentional Monuments

chapter 5|12 pages

The Problem of Obsolete Buildings

A Society Can Only Support So Many Museums

chapter 6|16 pages

Memory and Anticipation

The Existing Building and the Expectations of the New Users

chapter 7|21 pages

Conservation

A Future Orientated Movement Focussing on the Past

chapter 9|17 pages

Spatial Agency or Taking Action

chapter 10|12 pages

Smartness and the Impact of the Digital

chapter 11|17 pages

On Taking Away

chapter 12|15 pages

On Making Additions

Assemblage, Memory and the Recovery of Wholeness

chapter 13|20 pages

Itinerant Elements

chapter 14|23 pages

Nearness and Thinking About Details