Adapative reuse
An overview of projects, products and exclusive articles about adapative reuse
Project • By Atelier Meadow • Museums
REDGE Contemporary Art Center
The speed at which buildings become obsolete is now surpassing the speed at which cities can renew them.
Adaptive Reuse is no longer simply about preserving the past. The next challenge for contemporary urban development lies in confronting buildings that were completed only a few years ago, yet have already become inadequate for new social and cultural needs.
REDGE Contemporary Art Center is a public adaptive reuse project designed by Atelier Meadow in Chengdu, transforming the first three floors of an existing office building into a contemporary art center open to the community. Commissioned by Chengdu Tianfu International Bio-town, the project forms part of a broader urban strategy aimed at introducing public life, cultural activities... More
Project • By Architects’ Studio • Nurseries
HEI Schools Mauritius
Set within the historic Forbach Sugar Estate in Mauritius, HEI Schools Mauritius transforms a former residential labourers’ camp into a contemporary early childhood education centre. Rather than erasing the site’s past, the project carefully reactivates its existing stone structures, courtyards and longère typology, allowing heritage to become an active part of a new educational environment.
Designed for 120 children aged from birth to five, the campus is organised around a protected central garden that forms the heart of everyday life. Classrooms, verandahs, shaded courtyards and landscaped play areas are closely connected, encouraging children to move naturally between indoor and outdoor learning. This fluid relationsh... More
Project • By A61+ • Cultural Centres
El Jardí de l'Alzina
Jardí de l'Alzina reinterprets a historic garden and its casetes in Barcelona's Vila de Gràcia as an open civic landscape where architecture, nature, and community are brought into balance. At the center of the proposal stands a 250-year-old holm oak whose preservation defines the project's spatial organization and design strategy. Rather than adapting the landscape to accommodate new construction, the intervention is shaped around the tree, allowing the site's ecological and historical layers to remain the primary framework for change.
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The project combines the careful rehabilitation of the existing buildings with a lightweight steel structure addition that extends the program while maintaining a res... More
Project • By STARTT • Heritages
Pantheon - Micro architectures for archaeology
Mario Manieri Elia, renowned historian of Italian architecture, described the image of the Pantheon—resulting from the union of the marble front of a Greek temple and the concrete vaulted cylinder of Etrusco-Roman origin—as an embodiment of the idea of the Roman State, founded on the union between Greek culture and Roman technique. At least from this moment onward, architecture could no longer be reduced to a purely constructive problem: the design of spatial forms became a medium through which the values of collective life are communicated. It is also for this reason that the Pantheon stands among the most famous architecture in the world—an icon represented and narrated in its autonomous condition as an isolated monument... More
Project • By estudio Herreros • Art Galleries
SOLO CSV
SOLO CSV transforms a former industrial building into a centre for experimentation, debate, and the celebration of art in unexpected formats and contents. Inside, a public circulation spine of shifting scale—part corridor, part lively urban street—connects, crosses, and reveals a diverse and often indeterminate programme distributed over 4,000 square metres across two floors. This loop, with its ambiguous interior–exterior character, expands and contracts to create spaces for rest, encounter, and contemplation. It is punctuated by service lifts and staircases, most notably two key vertical connections—one in timber and the other in stone-like terrazzo—that link both levels at strategic points where their layout... More
News • News • 2 Apr 2026
Top 5 Adaptive Reuse Buildings Aligning with Paris-Proof Carbon Targets
As the architecture and construction sectors work to reduce their climate impact, adaptive reuse is increasingly being recognized as one of the most effective ways to align buildings with the goals of the Paris Climate Agreement. In technical terms, a Paris-Proof approach combines two core ambitions: reducing operational energy demand and emissions through better envelopes, efficient systems, electrification, and renewable energy, while also lowering embodied carbon by retaining existing structures, avoiding demolition, and limiting the use of new high-impact materials.
Located in different countries, the following projects show that adaptive reuse can support Paris-Proof ambitions through a combination of structural retention, low... More
Project • By WDJARCHITECTEN • Exhibition Centres
Netherlands Fotomuseum in Warehouse Santos
Pakhuis Santos: Restoration and transformation into a new home of the Nederlands Fotomuseum Pakhuis Santos, located in Katendrecht, Rotterdam, was built 1901-1902 and designed by architects Kanters and Stok and commissioned by Blauwhoedenveem. It is an exceptional example of warehouse architecture from the period when the Rotterdam Port was in full development. It’s richly detailed façades, technologically advanced supporting structure, clear main form, and honest use of materials have largely remained intact.
Iwan Baan
Hans Wilschut
After years of vacancy, the monumental warehouse has now been carefully restored and transformed. Where the building was originally intended as a design department store ‘sti... More
Project • By NU architecture & design • Housing
Atelier 32-34
Once a late 19th‑century Masonic Hall and Lodge, the site has been reimagined into seven contemporary dwellings through adaptive reuse. The intent was never to erase history but to work within its walls, preserving structure, materials, and craftsmanship while introducing new layers for modern living.
Just 3,5km from Melbourne’s CBD, 32–34 Maribyrnong Road offered a rare opportunity to create homes within a heritage landmark without silencing its voice.
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Heritage and Ceremony
Completed in 1887 by local architect J.C.M. Cowan, the Moonee Ponds Masonic Hall embodied Tuscan‑Classical Revival architecture. Its façade, framed by four pilasters and Masonic emblems, spoke of ceremony and symbolism. Inside, t... More
Project • By Create Architecture Singapore • Private Houses
Fan House
Fan House is an adaptive reuse project that transforms a once dark and spatially constrained two-storey corner terrace into a calm, light-filled multigenerational home. Rather than pursuing demolition, the project is anchored by a deliberate decision to retain the original first storey and second-storey structural slabs, allowing the new architecture to grow from an existing foundation. This approach preserves structural continuity while enabling the house to expand vertically into a five-level dwelling that responds to the evolving needs of a large, extended family.
Chuan Visuals
The original house was enclosed and inward-looking, limiting daylight, ventilation and spatial flexibility. Through careful reconfiguration, new volumes are... More
Project • By Sara Gelibter Architecte • Private Houses
Felsenburg
Felsenburg House in Biel is a renovation and vertical extension by Sara Gelibter Architecte for an artist couple. Initially planned as a modest refurbishment, the project became more ambitious after serious structural defects were uncovered, including a long-compromised roof. The solution was a new top floor that transformed the former industrial structure into a distinctive home.
Cyril Käppeli
Cyril Käppeli
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House on top of a house
The building’s layered past shaped the intervention: once a wine shed, later industrial workshops, a youth hostel, and then fragmented into domestic conversions. Rather than erasing these traces, the... More
Project • By Firm architects • Offices
De Visfabriek
De Visfabriek (The Fish Factory) is the restoration and redevelopment of a 1902 fish warehouse, abandoned for more than fifty years. Led by Firm Architects who also acted as investor and developer for the project, it transforms a derelict national monument into a resilient, future-adaptable building while retaining its cultural and industrial character. The design begins from a narrative premise: NORTH × NORTHWEST, a conceptual alignment based on the fisherman’s compass. This directional logic informs the internal cut through the historic structure, the orientation of the new void, and the flow of movement throughout the building. By rooting the intervention in a strong conceptual framework, the architecture reinforces the... More