Architecture can be locked in, responsive to, or transcend time. While almost all buildings reveal something specific about the time in which they were built, that meaning may change as its public changes, as one use fades and another emerges, and as social custom and utility make their mark. Age itself takes its toll, although it is interesting to consider how and why some buildings grow more beautiful as they patina with the passage of time while others simply get old.

The fact that individuals and communities care for, preserve, alter, amend, protect, and defend certain old buildings disproves the zeitgeist theory that underscores modernist thought. Ever since the Renaissance (and to some extent before it), architects intentionally drew from past sources to express a common meaning understood to be embedded in an architectural style. Conversely, starting in the late nineteenth century and to a greater extreme in the twentieth and twenty-first, many architects intentionally sought unprecedented newness. Such an approach should be seen as a matter of preference rather than mandate of the ethos--indeed, a literal belief of zeitgeist, or time-ghost (spirit), rejects our understanding of human agency and creativity.

This week we look at projects that blend innovation with preservation in a potent form of sustainable architecture commonly called adaptive reuse.

The Week at a Glance

For an overview of the week (and project 4), view this video.

Before you proceed with this week, make sure to finish last week by:

• writing (doing a mind-dump) in your personal journal for at least 15 minutes--distill the whole week into what seems most important to you
• distilling what you wrote in your journal in the "Journaling" exercise for Week 10 on Blackboard

To successfully complete the eleventh week of the semester in ARC 1015, follow these steps:

(1) Consider this optional opportunity: on Thursday, take part in the Nashville Design Week program, "Segregated by Design" (5-6 PM; pre-registration required). By Friday morning, respond to the optional journal entry available on the Blackboard site (and labeled "Journal Entry for Week 11: "Segregated by Design" (OPTIONAL)," which will be available shortly after the program concludes.

(2) Work through the narrative and activities that follow on this page, noting the following upcoming due dates.

• Friday: take the quiz
• Monday: complete the project
• NOTE: assignments are always due at 11:11 AM on the specified date--unless you receive specific directions otherwise

(3) Read the current assignment in the Paul Goldberger book, Why Architecture Matters (chapter 6).

Learning Objectives

At the conclusion of this unit, you should be able to:

• Interpret manifestations of the realms of sustainability in a variety of approaches to architecture [UNDERSTAND].
• Recognize opportunities for service and vocation, understood in the context of Christian traditions, within the context of twenty-first century architectural practices [UNDERSTAND].

New technologies are oftentimes developed to facilitate emerging human needs or, alternately, guide an alleged need for a particular development. We've seen in class recently how new technologies have been, and are being, employed in contemporary architecture to offset the unsustainable building practices introduced after the Industrial Revolution. Another important element in this conversation is the use, or reuse, of old things, namely through the two avenues of historic preservation and adaptive reuse: what some people call "the original green." On this topic, architect Norman Foster said:

The ultimately sustainable building is a building that you can recycle. Instead of demolishing the building, you can adapt it to change. The challenge is to do buildings which encourage change, which respond to change, and to have technologies and techniques which enable buildings to improve their performance.

In addition to the environmental and economic benefits of avoiding the creation of more trash through demolition and construction, as well as conserving embodied energy, both of these approaches squarely serve the social dimension of sustainability by maintaining and conserving architectural symbols of community and the expertise of skilled builders. Read two good introductions to the subject:

• "Adaptive Reuse: Much More than Historic Preservation" and
• "Giving Old Buildings New Life Through Adaptive Reuse"

Next, take a deeper dive into adaptive reuse theory and practice with this lecture by Hugo Chan, director and architect in Studio HC (New South Wales, Australia) and design critic at the University of New South Wales, whose research focuses on building conservation, ecological and cultural sustainability, planning, environmental law and urban residential development.

Finally, a few more case studies:

• Read "Why Adaptive Reuse Matters," which explains adaptive reuse theory in context of a project in Denver
• Watch the following, which will take you to Amsterdam:

• take this quiz

If you'd like more, continue with this article and watch the following bonus video, which is a short presentation on a project in Phoenix:

Now that you have completed a fair amount of introductory work in the subject, it's time for you to dig into a case study. of adaptive reuse. Find the directions on the Blackboard site, where you will find "Project 4: Adaptive Reuse" in the "Projects" folder.

• Note: the assignment will be available in Blackboard within the next few days
• In the meantime, you can review the list of potential topics & pick one here

Tate Modern, London (Herzog & de Meuron, 2000); originally. the Bankside Power Station (Giles Gilbert Scott, 1891)

prep: 

Make sure you have easy access to a few images, or slides from your posted presentation, that you can share in a group discussion of your adaptive reuse projects.

on campus

Group 1:Brendon, Anna, Ryan M., Sierra; Group 2: Jason, Kayli, Jesse, Katellen; Group 3: Benjamin, TJ, Lauren, Tess.

1. (3:30) Presentation/discussion: Adaptive Reuse & Historic Preservation (& Sustainability)
2. (4:20) Break
3. (4:30) Group work
   1. Mini-conference: adaptive reuse & the three realms of sustainability (continue to fill in this worksheet on sustainability, or start a new one)
   2. Discuss Goldberger, Ch. 6
      • On pp. 182-83 the author states that buildings always bear a mark of their "time:" in other words, the age/period/circumstances under which they were built. (The discussion of "timeliness"--or lack thereof--continues through p. 191.) How do the first & second "lives" of your group's adaptive reuse projects illustrate this point--or do they?
      • On pp. 194-95, the author extends his considerations to "layers" of architectural/cultural meaning in cities. To what extent do your group's adaptive reuse projects illustrate his idea?
4. (5:10/15) Reconvene
5. (5:30+) Write a summary of the week
6. Next thing: Complete a review of another person's project by Friday morning (11:11 AM)--see directions on next week's narrative.
   1. project chart (find which project you are to assess)
   2. rubric (use this to assess the project; send an image of it to the project author & Dr. Amundson

online (note: please add your group number to your name on zoom)

Group 1: Chase, Rachel, Ryan P., Emma; Group 2: Melanie, Honor, Reggie, Anthony; Group 3: Paige, Peyton, Heidi, Keily, Dylan; Group 4: Harry, Taylor, Nathan, Sarah.

1. (3:30) Presentation/discussion: Adaptive Reuse & Historic Preservation (& Sustainability)
2. (4:20) Break
3. (4:30) Group work
   1. Mini-conference: adaptive reuse & the three realms of sustainability (continue to fill in this worksheet on sustainability, or start a new one)
   2. Discuss Goldberger, Ch. 6
      • On pp. 182-83 the author states that buildings always bear a mark of their "time:" in other words, the age/period/circumstances under which they were built. (The discussion of "timeliness"--or lack thereof--continues through p. 191.) How do the first & second "lives" of your group's adaptive reuse projects illustrate this point--or do they?
      • On pp. 194-95, the author extends his considerations to "layers" of architectural/cultural meaning in cities. To what extent do your group's adaptive reuse projects illustrate his idea?
4. (5:10/15) Reconvene
5. (5:30+) Write a summary of the week
6. Next thing: Complete a review of another person's project by Friday morning (11:11 AM)--see directions on next week's narrative.
   1. project chart (find which project you are to assess)
   2. rubric (use this to assess the project; send an image of it to the project author & Dr. Amundson

recording of class meeting

Especially in the west, technological change has been a key means to interpret phases of architectural development: we know the Greeks by their stone trabeated architecture, the Romans by their concrete vaults, the nineteenth century by its iron structures. But such is only part of the story, as a fairer consideration (with very rare, and very recent, exception) understands that local conditions, vernacular traditions, and social needs are to credit for the way people design buildings differently in one place or another.

But advance in technology is important and, for better or worse, a defining characteristic of the US in the twenty-first century. A key belief in modernism is to strive for newness of expression, oftentimes (in fact, usually) tied to technological change: either real or perceived. (Please note: "change" and "progress" are not the same thing and the latter should not be assumed in the former.) While understanding that architects have often sought expressive potential in technology of one kind or another, it's another thing all together to assume that technology itself has some kind of agency or determining power over its use and expression. Belief in this idea is called technological determinism and, due to its prevalence in the Modernist movement, thought, and writing (and continued residue in practice today), it's worth a focus. Let's start by understanding that we're talking about a frame of understanding when we talk about how technology changes society; this view is called technological determinism and it is very different from social constructions of history, as this video explains:

Modern Communication

The spread and change of architectural ideas throughout history has been dependent on the systems of communication that carried those ideas--and the intentionality with which they were carried. Roman generals carried the principles of city planning with them as they conquered an empire that stretched thousands of miles from the Capitol; medieval journeymen recorded structural and decorative details of great public buildings in their sketchbooks that carried Gothic idioms across geographic boundaries; movable type and woodcuts allowed the new innovation of book publication to carry greater numbers of words and images farther across Europe and by the eighteenth century, around the world with even greater publication techniques. National mail service, photography, and the internet likewise increased the speed of ideas by leaps and bounds. In the 1840s, architect Thomas U. Walter wrote in an essay called "Modern Architecture" how his practice had been revolutionized by having greater access to books, photography, and other countries via steam travel, than any generation before him. So while we may look at the last few decades as an "information revolution," really it's just the most recent and fastest chapter of a very long story.