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9/25/12 11:10 AMRenovation of an Aging Urban Building into Multi-Purpose Office Space - Buildipedia.com
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Renovation of an Aging Urban Building into Multi-Purpose Office Space
Renovation of an Aging Urban Building into Multi-Purpose Office SpaceRenovation of an Aging Urban Building into Multi-Purpose Office Space
Renovation of an Aging Urban Building into Multi-
Purpose Office SpaceWritten by Laura Dyer Mon Sep 24 2012 Modified Mon Sep 24 2012
Aging buildings can have at least two lives – through adaptive reuse, theycan become vibrant office, retail, and mixed-use spaces.
From cookie factories to department stores to courthouses, all types of buildings can be updated to meet the needs oftoday’s demanding markets. Renovation of abandoned or empty facilities can be a more sustainable option than buildingnew facilities. Many clients are realizing the appeal and draw that unusual office, residential, and retail buildings have fortheir users. Today, architects are bringing creative design solutions to make these adaptive reuse projects flourish.
Among the most successful reuse projects are those that combine old elements with new features. These buildings become,in a sense, hybrids to be used for purposes other than what the original owner had intended.
“We’ve had several building booms throughout our nation’s history,” saysMichael Stern, principal of architecture firm Strada, LLC. “We’re in a period ofrebuilding, adapting, and reusing structures from previous booms assustainability continues to be a primary consideration for clients.”
Many clients are interested in sustainability and adaptive reuse because it aligns with their brand identity and it showsconsumers that they are environmentally responsible. Adaptive reuse also helps clients distinguish themselves from theircompetitors.
“Building responsibly means using sustainable methods,” adds Anthony Colciaghi, partner at architecture firm FrancisCauffman. “One such method is adapting older facilities to be reused rather than tearing them down and starting fromscratch. Renovating and reusing old building stock requires fewer materials, which means less waste goes into landfills.”
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9/25/12 11:10 AMRenovation of an Aging Urban Building into Multi-Purpose Office Space - Buildipedia.com
Page 2 of 6http://buildipedia.com/go-green/sustainable-materials-methods/a-new-lease-on-life
Adaptive reuse is becoming especially prominent in urban centers where much of the building stock is 100 years old ormore. The formerly industrial city of Pittsburgh has a lot of aging factories and mills, prime for renovation and reuse. Stradarecently transformed the interior of Bakery Square – aptly named for its former life as the location of a Nabisco cookiefactory – into green office space.
The design team kept many of the building’s historical features while updating the interior spaces to LEED Gold standards.Bakery Square has attracted such companies as Google and the University of Pittsburgh’s Technology Development Centerwith its distinctive origin as a cookie factory that now has new tech-friendly features. Tenants welcome a connection to thepast. The original drum of the dough mixer still stands resolute over Google’s open office layout as a link to the building’stasty history.
Not long before their work at Bakery Square, Strada adapted and connected seven historic buildings into a single mixed-useproject in an effort to revitalize the commercial and civic center of Pittsburgh, long abandoned in favor of the skyscrapersthat rise around it. The project centered on the former G.C. Murphy department store and its surrounding buildings, all builtbetween 1900 and 1930. It is one of the largest historic preservation and adaptive reuse projects in downtown Pittsburgh,with 46 new loft apartments sitting above retail outlets. The project received LEED Gold certification.
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9/25/12 11:10 AMRenovation of an Aging Urban Building into Multi-Purpose Office Space - Buildipedia.com
Page 3 of 6http://buildipedia.com/go-green/sustainable-materials-methods/a-new-lease-on-life
Adaptive Reuse: GreenSpace as a Tool forNeighborhoodRevitalization.
For many reasons, adaptive reuseprojects are great for theenvironment. Read More...
Preserving Sustainability.
We are fortunate to live in a timewhen the phrase "the greenestbuilding is the one already built" isstarting to catch on and hopefullybecoming commonplace in thebuilding industry. Read More...
“Market Square Place was the culmination of more than a decade of planning forthe revitalization of the Fifth and Forbes avenues commercial district,” says Stern.“We researched the site’s history extensively in order to return the buildings to theirformer glory and to unite them into a single structure while updating them for the21st century.”
The G.C. Murphy store at Market Square Place isn’t the only department store tohave received an adaptive reuse treatment lately. When USM, a national facilitiesmaintenance company and offshoot of EMCOR, began searching for a larger officespace for its team, the company discovered an old Sears department store that hadbeen sitting vacant for 10 years in Norristown, Pennsylvania. They enlisted FrancisCauffman to redesign the space into something that would fit the company’s needs.
The design team cut windows into the exterior wall and added skylights to allow formore daylight in the 108,000-square-foot space. This daylighting and low partitionsbetween workspaces created an open, contemporary feel for USM’s new office,which attained LEED Silver certification. Timber framing defines team spaceswithout disrupting the open layout.
A few hundred miles away in Wilmington, Delaware, Francis Cauffman undertookthe challenging task of transforming a historic former Federal courthouse into thenew headquarters of law firm Young Conaway Stargatt & Taylor, LLP. “While theoriginal function of the courthouse and the law firm’s intended use are similarlyaligned, we needed to update the nearly 100-year-old courthouse with technologyupgrades and modern features while maintaining the building’s historic detailsthroughout the space,” says Kim Hong, partner at Francis Cauffman. “Adapting thecourthouse to fit the needs of one of America’s largest corporate law firms requirednew fit-outs along with retaining historic features such as the marble floors andelliptical staircases in the lobby.”
Francis Cauffman juxtaposed the 1916 courthouse’s neo-classical features withmodern amenities such as a state-of-the-art communications system and a strategysuite to accommodate out-of-state counsel.
Strada is a multidisciplinary architecture firm based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.The firm specializes in architectural design and urban planning, retail and corporatedevelopment, historic and neighborhood preservation, public landscapes, highereducation, and green design. For more information, visit www.stradallc.com
Founded in 1954, Francis Cauffman focuses on architecture, planning, and interior design for corporate offices, healthcare,and science and technology. The firm has offices in Philadelphia, New York, and Washington, D.C. For more information,visit www.franciscauffman.com
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Published in Sustainable Materials & Methods
Laura DyerLaura is a writer who works in Marketing and PR in New York City. She writes about interestingprojects and trends in architecture, design, and engineering. Her previous experience includeswork in the publishing industry for both books and periodicals, such as The Architect’s Newspaper.She graduated from The Ohio State University with Bachelors of Arts degrees in English andFrench.
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