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Buildings and Their Adaptive Reuse

By Salvador Rivas - S*ARC
Director General

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By Salvador Rivas | Director General - Tue, 05/09/2023 - 16:00

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“Sustainable development is the development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” - Gro Harlem Brundtland.

Why is adaptability so important for sustainable development? As an architect who throughout the years has experienced different countries, cities, schools, and homes, I may know a thing or two about adaptability to change. This is a condition that, while it may be challenging to consider at first, is essential for the survival of our communities, organizations, and us, as individuals. And this applies to different realms of life, where it has been proven that resisting change is not only counteractive but will also lead to the demise of the non-adaptive system or entity. 

Based on this constant interest in the adaptability of the built environment, I recently attended a real estate forum in Dallas, Texas, with the main subject being Adaptive Reuse, where various experts and architects from the Americas had the opportunity to present their approach to how existing or planned buildings can accommodate this premise. This is an essential consideration for future real estate developments as it addresses some of the main challenges in most of our Latin-American cities that have faced explosive growth in recent years. 

The current situation of the real estate industry with changes in consumer preferences, increase in construction costs and more ambitious sustainability targets are requiring the whole ecosystem (authorities, investors, developers, designers, contractors, among others.) to consider other alternatives that will result in adaptable, innovative, and sustainable building projects. Adaptive reuse refers to the process of reusing an existing building for a purpose other than what it was originally built or designed for. It is also known as recycling and conversion. 

According to studies from 4S Real Estate Foresight Consultancy Group, there are more profound considerations as cities’ urban planning and development in emerging economies follow an exocentric model, where different urban nodes are outside the city center, making the planning and implementation of key infrastructure more challenging. In contrast, the planning of European cities follows a more concentric model, and these are aspects that also have been discussed at other forums like Inmobiliare’s Real Estate Business Summits in various Mexican locations. 

In Dallas, Ignacio  Torres, CEO of 4s Real Estate Foresight Consultancy Group, shared with us examples of cities like Calgary, Canada, that are already promoting and implementing initiatives for adaptive reuse from office to residential buildings. He also mentioned that the adaptive model is closely related to aspects of the market, the business, the new context, and the planet and that there is a real need for a change from the conventional real estate development models where technology will play a major role to develop more sustainable solutions. 

This is especially relevant as global environmental goals like the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, particularly the one focused on sustainable cities and communities, have as an aim ”making cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable.” and which aim by 2030 to ”significantly reduce the adverse per capita environmental impact of cities.” This represents a major challenge but also a great opportunity to think differently about how to accomplish more sustainable cities and buildings around the world. 

For example, current data shows that although there seems to be a gradual recovery in the office market, it is also estimated that “office vacancy will increase by 55% by the end of the decade as hybrid and remote work push real estate to an inflection point.” In conversations with leading experts in the workplace field, the expectation is that to attract and retain talent it will be important for organizations to reassess their collaborative frameworks, but there are already important changes to consider when it comes to the planning, design, and operation of building spaces. 

This is also relevant in other building typologies, so it is crucial that we explore other avenues for adaptable building design. This is why at our companies, s*arc and neoxspace, we have been developing projects that address these issues. One example is the one that I presented at the real estate forum in Dallas where we designed a building that is adaptable, from the parking basement levels to the standard floorplates, which can be adapted from flexible office space to residential or hospitality units through a pre-engineered strategy.

And as mentioned in my previous article, Adaptable Building Solutions, these are aspects that I have considered since my postgraduate studies in 2000 and with the foundation of s*arc in 2017, where we took the initiative to develop building projects that would be adaptable to unexpected changes in the environment. In a way, the 2020 pandemic proved the vulnerability of our built environment to change, and these effects are still current, as previously mentioned in the case of office and other building typologies.  

Strategies for adaptability represent an investment from the outset, as they must be considered from the planning, design, and coordination of the building design but it allows for buildings to be truly adaptable to future changes without major or unexpected financial investments for its ulterior retrofit. This is already possible through a careful strategic definition, as one of the stages from the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) Plan of Work 2020, which we use as a framework for the development of all our projects, regardless of their scale and complexity. 

Sustainable real estate development is not a trend, but it is something that is essential, as investors, organizations, and consumers are already requesting that their buildings are energy efficient, from their conception to their operation. And this goes even further, as there are already certifications available in Mexico that rate customer satisfaction when it comes to the overall performance of the building from the point of view of the user. So, adaptive buildings are not a luxury, but a real need for a more sustainable built environment, for our current and future generations. 

Photo by:   Salvador Rivas

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