Designing for Future Building Adaptive Reuse: Professor Craig Langston
 

Vice-Chancellors’s Research Grant Scheme 2009/10 ($10,000)
 

This research seeks to understand the impact of modern design strategies in realizing buildings that have high potential for subsequent adaptive reuse when their original objective becomes obsolete. By quantifying what a “long life, low energy, loose fit” paradigm actually means, designers can ensure their buildings purposefully cater for future renewal so that maximum benefit can be obtained from the resources allocated to their creation. A pilot project is used to explore some of the underpinning issues, and forms the basis for a larger research study and an application for ARC funding by CI Langston.
 

This research project enables a pilot case study of a successful adaptive reuse conversion to be explored, assisting and supporting a subsequent ARC Discovery Project application. A part-time research assistant (Sheila Conejos) was appointed to collect data during the first half of the grant period. The pilot study selected was the GPO Building in Melbourne with data provided by an industry partner organization funding an earlier ARC Linkage Project (LP0776579) on strategic adaptive reuse modeling.
 

The main purpose of the wider research agenda is the creation and validation of a new tool, known as adaptSTAR, which aims to develop an assessment process for adaptive reuse potential for proposed new buildings. It is similar in concept to the Green Building Council’s Green Star or LEED evaluation methodologies. When validated, the adaptSTAR tool will be made available to design practitioners through a future commercialization arrangement. A mixed mode research methodology comprising a combination of case study analysis, expert interviews and practitioner survey is the approach selected to collect relevant data and enable the findings to be triangulated and validated.
 

The GPO Building (Melbourne) is a prominent and well-known adaptive reuse project in Australia, and was awarded the RAIA National Award for Commercial Buildings and the Sir Osborn McCutcheon Commercial Architecture Award following its conversion. Melbourne’s GPO was constructed on the Bourke and Elizabeth Street corner site in 1859. Between 1859 and 1867, a much grander, two-level building was developed and underwent a few major renovations until it was completed in 1919 with its new sorting hall. In 1992, Australia Post announced plans to sell the building and end the GPO’s major postal role in favour of decentralized mail centres. A shopping mall was proposed in 1993 but its permit later lapsed, while in 1997 a hotel proposal did not proceed. Again in early 2001 plans for a retail centre were announced but experienced a major setback when the building was almost gutted by fire in September of that year. Finally, the Melbourne’s GPO building opened for trade as a retail centre in October 2004. As one of the CBD’s premier boutique shopping destinations, the GPO building houses over 50 stores across its three floors.
 

From this pilot study, some of the possible design criteria have been identified. A preliminary unweighted list of design criteria was prepared based on interviews with the architectural team and a survey of relevant documentation. These discovered design criteria have been linked to the seven factors of obsolescence (physical, economic, functional, technological, social, legal and political). The initial set of design criteria was also informed by the relevant literature on existing and recent design strategies that pertains to the adaptation of heritage buildings together with other building adaptation concepts/guidelines. It is anticipated that this initial list will be substantially modified given the different interviews and field surveys of the stakeholders/experts of case studies used in the full project.

The proposed adaptSTAR design criteria will be evaluated to determine the weighted value of its associated and corresponding design elements. The set of design criteria reflect the obsolescence categories: Physical (Long Life); Economic (Location); Functional (Loose Fit); Technological (Low Energy); Social (Sense of Place); Legal (Quality Standard) and Political (Context). The design criteria will serve as the foundation for the evaluation of new designs using a scale of numerical scores from significant to not significant. The performance of any new design therefore is scored against these weighted criteria and used to assemble a total score or star rating for the future building. The higher this score, the better it is at addressing future adaptive reuse opportunities.
 

The creation of a rating tool in designing new buildings that have high potential for adaptive reuse in their later lives will support long-term economic, social and environmental opportunities in sustaining our future. Adaptive reuse will surely contribute to the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, lead to embodied energy savings and even maintain inherent cultural and heritage values for future generations to behold. The VC Research Grant Scheme has supported an ongoing research agenda by the applicant and underpinned a current ARC Discovery Project application that has received favourable reviewer reports.