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1_ How can we improve the performance of existing buildings in urban environments to respond to growing populations and the climate crisis?

2_ Adaptive Reuse strategies in cities can have a profound impact on the urban fabric and redevelopment due to their cultural and historical presence. In the coming years these buildings will need to utilize new technologies in order to effectively grow and adapt to modern functions. Because of the density that exists within cities, there is a unique relationship created between the adapted building and the city.

3_ 66% of the houses that will be occupied in 2050 have already been built. For major cities that are undergoing rapid changes in population and economics, this means that existing structures must learn in order to keep up. In the book ‘How Buildings Learn’, Stewart Brand stresses that an adaptive building must allow for slippage between “site, structure, skin, services, space plan, and stuff.” With a focus on the urban context I think it’s just as important that there is slippage within the ‘city’ (it doesn’t start with an ‘s’, but at least it sounds like it does). What I mean by this is that buildings should be adapted with the assumption that their cities will always be changing. One of the mechanisms I would like to utilize in exploring the idea of adaptive reuse in cities is mass customization. This involves studying how new construction technologies may allow people to customize their space over time. The use of these new technologies in adapting older structures allows for a unique dichotomy to be inherent in the architecture. The challenge here becomes how much can we change a building – or a city – before it loses those qualities which we hope to preserve.