BDP Podcast

Hello. I'm Alan Davis. I'm an architect and Heritage Lead at BDP. Welcome to the first ever BDP podcast series. It’s called Old Buildings New Beginnings. In this series, we discuss the current thinking relating to the reuse of old and existing buildings. We will discuss topics including adaptive reuse, sustainability, accessibility, improving performance as well. As well as the cultural significance of keeping all buildings.

Why build new when you can repurpose the old? 

Welcome to the conversation.

Hello and welcome to Old Buildings New Beginnings where this week we broaden our discussion and ask the question ‘Is the adaptive reuse of old buildings a global trend?’

When it comes to the reuse of buildings, do we have to be sensitive to the different circumstances in those countries where we work? How does this affect our approach, our design process, and the construction process? And how do we persuade our clients in different parts of the world of the merits of reusing existing buildings? Or is this already taking off as a worldwide initiative? 

With me today to discuss these questions, I have three colleagues from across BDP global network of studios. Akshay Khera is an architect director in our Bristol studio and has also worked in our New Delhi and Abu Dhabi studio.

Tianyi Gu is an architect director in our Shanghai studio who has also spent time in the UK.

And Illyas Maljee is an architect associate in our Abu Dhabi studio.

Welcome to you all. I'd like to start with a question about the nature of the building stock in the parts of the world where we're working and how that might influence the drive to reuse them or to replace them and I guess, you know, a good place to start on that discussion is in the Middle East and UAE and Illyas, just outline for us the history of the area that you're working in.

Thanks, Alan. I think the UAE… I've only been here for a very short period of time, but I've come to realize that the UAE is it's quite a new place from the post Etihad period. It's from the formation of the United Arab Emirates. It's been approximately 50 years. You can compare it to probably Milton Keynes in the UK, which, you know, we wouldn't class that as an old city.

So when it comes to adaptive reuse, I mean, in the UK you'd probably consider adaptive reuse to buildings that have only been around for 20, 30 years at the most, it either be an insult to you know, either the building itself or someone would probably ask the question to say someone got this wrong, right? How can you, how can you reuse a building which is only been around for 20 or 30 years? So that brings me to 42 Abu Dhabi. 

42 Abu Dhabi is a project which is in the, in the Mina Zayed warehouse district which was former warehouses for the Abu Dhabi port. And they were storage buildings that were specifically created for storage warehouses to support the port itself. It was built around the seventies so again, from the perspective of adaptive reuse, it hasn't been around for a long time. And 42 Abu Dhabi is quite an interesting project because given the fact that the original approach for this particular project was adaptive reuse to retain the existing building and retain the existing structure and that's how we proceeded to design a really unique tuition centre run by Ecole themselves, which is a free coding school that adopts a fascinating project based peer to peer learning – it’s free. So it's really interesting approach. And the entire masterplan itself is based on an educational purpose. Allies and Morrison were actually involved in the master planning of this entire district.

This project that we approached with an architectural vision to retain the structure, retain the facade as much as we can, keep the skin, keep the history, keep the 30, 40 years it's been around on the port itself to maintain that historical value.. but that I'd like to add that the projects that I've seen in this region, when you do an adaptive reuse many of the projects were poorly constructed or weren't constructed to the scrutiny that we would probably get in European countries or the UK countries because there was a large push to develop the industry. There’s a large amount of oil money obviously in the UAE and to push the country to a heavy extent. Many, many buildings were constructed to a level where adaptive reuse probably wasn't something that people considered, it was almost something that they would approach from a perspective of demolition. Demolition, because money isn't a shortage here. So it's not in people's understanding to reuse a building. Why would you if you've got plenty of land, you've got plenty of money to do it? 

Sharjah, actually being one of the Emirates, was probably one of the first. It's about an hour's drive from Dubai. I actually should touch on Sharjah. Akshay, do come in here because you probably know a little bit more about Sharjah than me.

But Sharjah itself was probably the city that's probably a little bit behind in terms of modern development compared to Dubai and Abu Dhabi. However, it was probably the city that was developed the most in terms of all the Emirates, and it's just to touch on it now, I know that that's not part of the question, but Sharjah itself is probably the most forward when it comes to adaptive reuse, the most forward when it comes to maintaining heritage, and probably because of the interest by the ruler in Sharjah himself in terms of I mean, he at this current time, he actually has a Royal Institute of British Architects advisor sitting with him, you know, besides him, who advises him of all the architectural elements, whether it's refurbishment, whether it's new build, contextually, master planning, et cetera. So he's got someone to advise him. And Sharjah was the city that developed adaptive reuse. And from that particular city, you've then got the likes of Abu Dhabi, who then followed suit.

No, I think you're right. I think what had happened is you had the modernist movement, you had the Arabic modernist movement, which was the similar type of movement that we had in the UK. So you had these lovely pieces of architecture. Many Western architects were involved in developing the early, early development of the UAE. However, these particular buildings themselves, a lot of them have been demolished to date.

They don't have that type of importance that we do have in the UK. So, for example, it’s that the understanding of adaptive reuse is not something that the architects, I'm talking about architectural practices in the UAE as well as individuals as well as clients. Clients do not understand adaptive reuse in this country and they haven't.

It is. There are some buildings, for example in Sharjah there was an art foundation in Sharjah actually it was an interesting article that I came across that many of the banks have actually had this adaptive reuse approach. Akshay do come in here because I'm sure you’ve probably got a lot more knowledge when it comes to some of the particular buildings here.

But this development, I mean, there was, there was an arts foundation developed by a specific architect who approached the Sharjah Development Committee at that time, who were about to demolish a beautiful, modern, modernist, architectural, almost like an area where you had a number of apartment buildings, you had mixed use, you had a number of shops, you had some banks all of this was going to be flattened for a new development.

So they took this particular building… There was an arts exhibition that took place in this particular building. And thereafter it was so successful that this was reversed. So therefore, the demolition of this particular area wasn't I mean, this architect, his specific view in terms of why buildings in this region are not being reused. And he's obviously pushing for this is just a… we have a large amount of land here. So we have an abundance of financial backing to develop new. So therefore, for architects to approach a project and advise the client that you can retain this particular project or you can reuse it for and get a really, really useful use out of this particular building without demolishing it can also be achieved. And that attitude is changing.

Yeah. Can I ask you Tianyi again, just concentrating on the nature of the existing buildings stock, is that suitable for adaptation and reuse? Is it again comparing with what Illyas has just explained about the development of the region he's working, in the comparison of the UK with the 200 year old buildings that are robustly built but can be adapted. I think when we think of China, we think of recent economic developments and urbanization and that is the big trend, which is driving development and change in China. 

What is the nature of the existing building stock that is suitable for adaptive reuse or refurbishment?

Hi Alan. Yeah, thank you for the invite and for this event. A really interesting topic. I would say certainly industry heritage buildings are more and more becoming the key trend to suit the urbanization and the development of China currently, in the current mood. Tier one cities, Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, we have 4 tier one cities, you're talking about population of 20 million each roughly and things like Guangzhou only yesterday 43 buildings becoming listed and they’re all industry heritage. 

I think because of the urbanization for most of these tier one cities you're talking about 60%-65% urbanization compared with the UK and in the city centre, we have less and less building stocks, as well as land, to allow high density high FAR developments so to allow the city municipal government as well as district level to the major private sector investment they want more influence into and more impact to gain more profit. They have to move like what Manchester did they have to move the focus to outskirts of Shanghai and to middle ring or even further to outer ring and then but these previously most of these areas are in fact industry land and it has a really high speed motorway area to easily reach these areas and they are not individually alone.

You know, building these factories there they are one next to each other. You're talking about 10, 20, 30 of them becoming a ring or half of a circle outside of the major cities. So if the city, either both private or public sector money combined together going to their area, if they found landmark place like Pipestone High Power Station and then very easily, they can trigger a vast area of previously low value area zones to becoming a mix of use.

You're talking about residential office towers and bring metro stations, metro lines to go there and then give us a certain level of theme such as to provide enough of support like health care, sports and cultural and then develop these areas becomes the sub core of the Shanghai City Center.

We've worked together on projects in Chongqing where again, the drive was to preserve 20th century buildings. Industrial buildings. And in that case, a lot of very good traditional courtyard housing had been lost. 

That still sounds to be the trend that the industrial buildings, 20th century buildings are being saved and kept as for their cultural as well as the historic significance but other building types are being lost because of the need to build to greater densities, would you say that's a fair reflection?

That's certainly the case Alan, and because China relatively speaking has a long history of modernization into the architecture industry, the country was formed in 1949, you're talking about at least 70 years history. Before that is the is one century of all the wars for various reasons and also after 1949, China still suffered from 20-30 years of different conflicts et cetera.

So the real estate development that building the China was actually the only started from the 1980s. So you're talking about most of the buildings you see only has 30 years to maximum 40 years history and then so the pencil factory becomes a very unique and high value in the city centre and then has to protect it. But the rest of the vast of the building, they still using, you know people still using them, and if we go back to the further distance I mean you're talking about timber buildings have been historically China which most of them doesn't even exist unlike the UK case, using people using stones rather than timber. So here are the residential building and the industrial building becoming two major areas that are becoming the building stocks.

I think India is an interesting one to talk about because it's so diverse in its building stock as it is in its culture, you know, and various parts of the country have various types of construction that happens there, you know, suitable to the climate from, you know, deserts up in the north, Himalayas further up and you know, very sort of coastal climate down in the south.

So, you know, there's a fair degree of variation in construction methods which then lend themselves to either longevity or not. Interestingly, you know, as an overview, as you were saying earlier, there is a fair bit of, you know, older building stock, you know, which is sort of more culturally relevant as well.

You know, older valleys where joint families lived together and those, you know, kind of went into a more derelict condition but instead of being demolished, they are now being repurposed as hotels and guest houses. And so, you know, so they're kind of breathing life back into them than developers, you know, coming around and, you know, demoing all of it and cleaning it out.

So there's a big difference in attitude in that respect. Old forts are always, you know, as they are in the rest of the world are always converted into hotels and the like the one interesting example and this kind of links in with what Tianyi was saying is that as I worked on a project where we were looking within an industrial estate, it used to manufacture nylon. And of course, that stopped, and the client along with the masterplanner who was one of our Chairs in the Delhi studio, did the overall master plan but interestingly they were to keep some of the heritage of what was done on site.

You know, with this with this nylon manufacturing industry, it had these massive chimneys and these cooling towers which were used. And in the overall masterplan, it was decided to keep the cooling towers and convert it into a restaurant. And the, you know, with these massive concrete funnels within it, if you design a new restaurant today, you would never, ever think of designing it in that way.

So that's an interesting aspect where when you reuse something, you could be experiencing a space which could be quite different from what you would normally design. And then the chimneys were kept and were converted into, you know, we got I think the artists were involved to paint alongside these chimneys and they became the heart of the campus.

So the need to retain and to keep and these, these probably were about, you know, 40-50 years old. So again it wasn't 100, 150 years old, but to keep some of that character and history and what was done and why it was done that said going through even a new development is gaining ground. 

And the last thing I'll say is from a sustainability aspect of course reuse and remodel is one aspect of it. But the other thing that is catching up in India is, is improvement of, you know, the fabric of the building, you know, relooking at more energy efficient ways to, you know, to implement, which would then help on the sustainability side of it. So that's another thing which is being looked into that, you know, let's not just demolish, let's see how we can improve the fabric or improve the efficiency of the building to make it more sustainable.

And warehouses are also being converted into restaurants and food and beverage, you know, type spaces because they're open plan, you know, they lend themselves most to anything coming in and because they have a reasonable height in them, you know, the possibility of inserting mezzanine floors and things like that is also taking, you know, taking ground in India.

What about policies, can you think the policies in the regions you're working, whether there are economic policies or sustainability policies, do they lead to re-use or do you think the policies are less geared to reuse some more towards, let's say, economic development or other goals?

If I can start with you, Tianyi.

From policy perspective, I think the China is how shall I put it, a single party. So from Beijing central government's policy normally is fairly easy to be exacted to province level and to city level and then to district level. And I remember two months ago when I was and still working on the at the time when we attended meetings for the power station project and there was a new policy released from central Beijing government emphasizing on that all the existing buildings need to be protected more once they are listed.

And the reason being that is some of the main central government realizing some of the cities and regions, private sector developers tend to be overly focusing on the profit when they are doing the developments. So Beijing central government obviously try to gear and to guide the trend for the developments in the major cities so it can see from Shanghai studio’s, project wise, we can very easily sense that the policy becomes more and more strict and tighter. 

A month ago we worked with Vanke, the largest to develop in China in Shanghai City Centre. It’s a residential quarter and to allow this very old two story a single block to be developed into mixed of functions with different usage and we need to do a lot of amendment to that especially let's see ground level and to open more permeability into the centre of the block, previously retail only happens and the surround on the edge but nothing happens in the middle apart from just the residential function. 

But now we have to change it so we have to increase the permeability but from a policy perspective, clearly we feel that there's a lot of… it becomes difficult, but in a way that also means to protected as a heritage and conservation perspectives. They clearly from national to regional to local, they all want to preserve as much as they can in terms of the structure, the wind elements, windows, walls and roofs, tiles it becoming more and more, I would say becoming more and more like a UK experience.

Yeah. That, that is very much on sustainable so the in the UK, the heritage conservation cultural aspect is very mature. You know, we started doing that in the 19th century in the Industrial Revolution and we, you know, the legislation we've got relating to cultural conservation, I matured a lot in the middle of the 20th century. So we have a long standing tradition of that, which is why places like York look like they do because they've had, you know, 70 years of, of conservation.

But the sustainability argument is wider. It relates to a lot more buildings to build buildings which we may not consider to have much cultural value, but has an inherent value in terms of embodied energy. So that's certainly true in the UK and… yeah, in India, is there anything different yet unique about the experience in India?

I think again in India it's quite, you know, heritage is extremely important and there is a lot of it, through of, you know, through different eras as well. And it is very important to preserve it and conserve it. And over the last ten or 15 years, you know, every time I do travel back and you can see the amount of effort being put into you know, improving, all the heritage structures. And there is a pride in having them and keeping them that way. 

So that's always been 

there, you know, and there's a lot of input even from the Indian Institute of Architects or the Council of Architects who always make sure that they've got a voice in anything that is changing. For example, very recently there was a big furore about one of Louis Khan’s hostels that he built for the Indian Institute of Management in Ahmedabad to be brought down. And you know, there was a push that went up to the courts. And I believe the building was saved and it wasn't demolished, you know, so those are the kinds of things which ensure that if you have that concerted effort and the need to save something, then it will be. And people want to. 

Interestingly, on the UAE side of it, you know, it's all relative as Ilyas was saying, it was 1971 is when the UAE was formed per say and one of the first commissions which was for the cultural foundation building which was designed by, you know, it was like the bauhaus sort of school, I think it was called the, the, I forget the name, the architects collaborative which was founded by Walter Gropius and it was, it was built in 1981. And what was really interesting is that it's got that modern sort of architectural quality. And then the master plan for Castle Hassan, the fort, and the build, you know, next to it was done. This was such an important piece of it. And it was remodelled, it was given a new lease of life internally, you know, and that shows that there is especially in Abu Dhabi I think which is considering itself to be the cultural capital as well in comparison to Dubai, you know, to retain all of this and to keep it is very important.

Just touching on Akshay’s point about some of the modernist era and some of these important buildings, there they are far and few between. We don't see many of the vast majority. I mean, when we do see them, they are fascinating buildings like Akshay just alluded to that they are fascinating pieces of architecture. But the vast majority of the building stock that you find in this region are buildings that probably went through like what you would call the late seventies, maybe early eighties in the UK when you had a period of just you know, architectural development that that when, you know, some of the buildings that you see in there, where would I say I mean, in East London where I where I grew up, there was a hell of a lot of buildings during that period that probably come down by now because they didn't meet any of the criteria of what we called good pieces of architecture that are timeless, that have a design which you can see through to 100 years.

I mean, that's another point that we need to consider, right? I mean, when they adaptive reuse, if you've got a building that just doesn't meet an architectural let's say, an architectural importance in terms of design. And I would tell you now, I mean, if this podcast was a videocast, I would probably turn my laptop towards the skyline of Abu Dhabi. And I think everybody would almost agree almost instantly that, yeah, I wouldn't really want to see that building being reused. I'd rather see that building come down. 

I guess that brings us I mean, those are very interesting points about the quality of buildings and when is it appropriate to adapt and reuse and are the buildings which are beyond that, that they have a limited life because of the circumstances which existed when they were built, it's a subject we have touched on in the previous podcast about sustainability so picking that up and moving it forward, I guess the question is how do we as BDP persuade our clients in these different parts of the world of the merits of reusing buildings?

Do you find, do we find ourselves having to make that argument or are clients now coming to us and saying, we know you do adaptive reuse, we know you understand this, both the economics of it and the cultural aspects. 

So in again in each of your regions, what is that relationship with your clients and which are the areas that we can push and say, yeah, it’s worth doing this either for economic or sustainability or cultural reasons.. it would be interesting to understand where you are in different parts of the world on those issues.

And I guess, you know, we can pick up first, Tianyi already mentioned industrial buildings and developers are coming public sector. What about the private sector in China, is that also a market is that an area where those clients understand the need to reuse buildings or not, or is that something that we can do to persuade them?

I think they do. Private sector wise, the clients they do understand the value of it and the value of if they can get involved and carry out projects like this and the value it can bring to not just the project itself, but also to the developer themselves as a reputation wise is this becoming more and more trending China for these adapt to reuse and for example, the Chongqing project you've been working on that is a private sector involvement, private investment going there. And despite the power station project, that's all three parties are public sector but, let's say Vanke, that's a private company and they tried to develop right in the middle of the Shanghai, these two residential blocks but at the same time they work with the government try to gain more compensation let's say from the government, and also the government want to develop these two, how should I say, these two 100 year old residential blocks, there's no activities there is just public unsafety, let's call it, and so it can see the value you know the value to the contribute to the society, to the project, as well as to the company itself. And this is from the, how should I call it, the minor level but from a macro level, I would say that because of the last year and the year before the political movement around the whole of China, everything all the resources becomes more and more centralized. 

So I would say currently in the current economic climate in China, it will become more and more public focused/ public sector focused for them types of projects. And this is the trend. But if we say after five years or ten years may come back again, it's a wave anyway.

Well, the vast majority of the buildings in Abu Dhabi and particularly in the inner city, are residential buildings or mixed use buildings. Those buildings were probably built, again, like I said, between the late seventies to the early nineties, very poorly constructed… Adaptive reuse, for example, for these buildings, I mean, in the time I've been here, which is just under a year and a half, I've seen four buildings come down locally to where I live, and I live in the heart of the city. I live in the hustle and bustle of Abu Dhabi, as you call it, as opposed to the really nice, newly modern developed residential districts surrounding Abu Dhabi and I would as an architect, knowing what those buildings look like before they were pulled down, I wouldn't have any other opinion other than agreeing with whoever decided to bring them down. And a residential building. Again, it was it was the early developers that were given portions of land. I don't really want to delve into that the political aspects of how land was subdivided to families and tribes within this region, because it's not my forte and I'll be doing it injustice. But that's pretty much how it happened. There was a rush of oil money that came through. There was lots of land. There was lots of people involved within that part of it who didn't understand development, who used architects, who developed all sorts. And there was no policy, there was no criteria, there was no rigid development that we had. I mean, again, you can you can say it's similar to how we went through in the late seventies, maybe early eighties in the UK when it came to Heritage, we had Heritage buildings. Well, I mean, you can speak in a lot more detail, I'm sure, Alan, but there was a lot of heritage. I worked on Cheltenham One Base Hill Road, which was two existing villas, and then in the late seventies, Kraft Food, which was an American food company, took over this building, completely ripped apart the historical elements of, of these two lovely villas, put concrete slabs to work for their office infill all the period features were taken away and, and then when we came on board to completely demolish and reverse what they had done, we faced all sorts of problems. I mean I know this is going diverted off. I mean was a drop this one we faced always so many problems reintroducing period features within these old villas but then also having to deal with issues related to for example, introducing double glazed sash windows. Right. So the conservation architect wouldn't have it. So it was like we went through a period where no one really cared about historical buildings other than the really, really, really important ones. And a lot of the historical buildings did get destroyed at certain period of time. Whereas over here in this region, it's adaptive reuse will be the buildings, like I've said, like I've described in relation to the modernist era. I think those are the buildings that actually have some value. There are the buildings that actually have some importance architecturally heritage wise.

The rest of the buildings are poorly constructed, constrained, and if you are going to reuse an existing apartment building, it's probably going to be reused as another apartment building. So the use will be maintained. It's not going to be purposed. And residential buildings are obviously required in this region. Because the expat population is quite high.

Yeah. I mean, I think, again, in the light of the whole sustainability discussion, I think that is probably comes to, you know, comes to the fore. You know, that's your first sort of layer as to why it is important. 

The second aspect really, you know, as Illyas was mentioning, you know, is to do with, you know, with the belief that there is a quality in the architecture and, you know, where it is and the context that it sits within, which makes it even more important to conserve it and reuse it or just conserve it. You know, it doesn't matter whether it's essentially reuse. So I think those two aspects are, you know, are the most important in that respect. 

In terms of the type of client also has a bearing on what is important to them. So although your end game would still be to conserve it, but how you approach it has to be different based on the type of client you're speaking with because of their, you know, their goals and aspirations, you have to align it, you know, to their goals and aspirations.

So for example, I'll just take some simple examples which I've already mentioned previously. So when we looked at that industrial project, you know, where we retained certain elements, there was an emotional connect. So the private developer, you know, had you know, had that vision and had that emotion can connect with what, you know, his family or their family did and they wanted to retain a bit of that. So, you know, if you can connect with that approach, then, you know, it is more possible to retain certain elements if you are looking at you know, from a developer standpoint, of course, you know, for them, the commercial side of it is important and then what that that gives you.

So for example, a lot of the you know, the old forts that were converted and these were kind of derelict, the government wasn't at that point doing anything for them. You know, they were bought out by independent you know, private developers whose sole focus was just to do that. So it wasn't a side business for them. You know, it was something that they really wanted to put their heart and soul into, you know, so it becomes easier with those clients because you want to they've already got that vision to be able to do that. 

And the third one, I think where we talked about, you know, the warehouses and things like that. Again, that is sort of more driven by entrepreneurs who want to do something different, you know, who want to contribute in a certain way. And again, lending itself back to sustainability, but also to coolness. You know, it is about creating that cool, interesting new type of space than any other standard space that they always, that that cust always go into. So I think again, it depends on the on the various threads and the type of client that you're speaking with, for a government client of course, it's going to be related to policy, you know, that that this aligns with what you are trying to achieve. And that's the reason why you need to do it.

From all of this what I get is a sense that by keeping these buildings, we are getting that richness of character and that variety. I think Akshay you describe buildings which you would never design in that way, being converted into restaurants or hotels and making for unique environments.

So thank you, all three of you. Illyas, Akshay, Tianyi, thank you for your insights and for taking us to different parts of the world in different studios.