Adaptive reuse in context: towards sustainable mixed - use housing in Durban.

Abstract

In this dissertation the process of adaptive reuse – the recycling or rehabilitation of buildings – is analysed in terms of the tenets of sustainability and place theories as construed in the field of architecture, as well as within the context of architectural and urban theory and history. The dissertation demonstrates how different approaches to adaptive reuse result in a sustainable architecture that is responsive to its context. Adaptive reuse is the historically normal practice of recycling buildings. Initially, the research focused on the relationship between old and new buildings; how is the new synthesised with the old, and what are the values of this relationship? It soon became evident that by today’s definition of sustainability in architecture, the practice of recycling buildings, and indeed the partial modification of buildings, came very close to fulfilling the ‘ideologies’ of sustainability. This research paper reconciles the history and practice of adaptive reuse, with the currently popular theories of sustainability and Place Theory. The pursuit of sustainability (Chapter One), in terms of architecture and building, results in part from the forces of rapid urbanisation, impending and/or perceived food, water and resource shortages, and the linear metabolism of the modernist built environment. A detailed review of related concepts and theories in Chapter Two, aim at giving the reader a better understanding of the context of adaptive reuse in this paper. The author has used the concepts and theories as tools for research (in Part I - Dissertation) and analysis (in Part II - Design). Chapter Three looks at three approaches to adaptive reuse – conservation, preservation and demolition – and relates them to the tenets of sustainability, as well as the concepts and theories laid out in Chapter One and Two. Specifically, each approach to adaptive reuse is contextualised in terms of the economic, environmental and social agendas of sustainability, which include both quantitative and qualitative aspects such as eco-efficiency and Place theory respectively. Chapter Four is a case study of the Bartel Arts Trust (BAT) Centre, Durban, South Africa. The study provides the historic, cultural and climatic settings, or contexts, of the conservation project, and relates these contexts to the architect’s approach to adaptive reuse. A carefully designed questionnaire has been used to identify those qualitative aspects which are otherwise unattainable through interview, review or perceptual observation. The case study also integrates the concepts and theories which underpin the topic, thereby contextualising the study in terms of this paper.