Photos: Architectural Record

As part of our Elements of Design series, we are highlighting three recently published brick office buildings which were adaptively reused. Renovating and repurposing a building helps conserve land usage, reduce blight and preserve a city’s historical treasures. New insertions into old building features enhance their beauty and originality.

EXTERIOR

In Portland Oregon, an 1892 building, the Packer-Scott building, was renovated and given a terracotta-clad addition, roughly doubling its size. The new building gives Mercy Corps World Headquarters (THA Architecture Inc.) a bright new space in which 6 departments came together. The Power House Building in St. Louis, Missouri, was originally a courthouse (1928), then a coal-fired power plant. Deserted for more than 30 years, Cannon Design purchased and repurposed the building for its own architectural offices. The design there is a ‘ship in a bottle’, where the original exterior walls are preserved, to soar along a new multi-story structure within. Finally, located just north of New York City along the Hudson River, the new Ellen Fisher Inc. headquarters (Earl Everett Ferguson Architect) are housed in an old Lord & Burnham greenhouse factory which featured exposed steel trusses, very high ceilings and saw-tooth skylights.

OFFICE SPACE

Office space is the major component in these three buildings. In all cases, interior partitions are kept to a minimum, so that everyone has a visual connection to one another, to natural light, and to the original building’s structure. From left to right, the Mercy Corps’ new window wall brings light deep into the building; Cannon Design’s new offices benefit from the views and light from the large arched windows; Eileen Fisher’s headquarters foster collaboration in the large open offices lit from above.

CONFERENCE SPACE

Conference spaces and informal gathering spaces are given equal importance in the projects, to give privacy to those that need it, and to encourage informal discussions in public areas.

COMMON AREAS

Common areas or public areas where there are intersections of circulation create spaces where people can meet, eat or take a break. These have been kept open so that there is possibility for informal meeting where there is natural light, close to one’s office, and where one can appreciate the environment – indoors and out.

 

Read about a successful reuse project in New Haven here…

 

We are not to throw away those things which can benefit our neighbor. Goods are called good because they can be used for good: they are instruments for good, in the hands of those who use them properly.
– Clement of Alexandria

 

 

Tags: adaptive reuse, adaptive reuse architecture, Architecture Blog, Architecture Images, conservation, Karin Patriquin, Karin Patriquin Architect