School of Architecture

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Browsing School of Architecture by Subject "adaptive reuse"

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    Industrious Ruins
    (2016-04-21) Boggess, Judith; Wittenberg, Gordon
    Industrious Ruins present an alternative approach to adaptive reuse operating between historic preservation and complete renovation. There is value to be found in the reactivation of defunct industrial structures, which are commonplace in US cities like Houston, through the use of certain interventions that enable new productive activities without detracting from the spectacular essence of the ruins themselves. More specifically, inspiration from architectural ruins is a starting point for the conversion of an 80-year-old-rice-mill in Houston's Fifth Ward into a hybrid commercial-scale urban farm and related community center. A proposed convergence between romantic admiration for the structure's historic presence and a full renovation into a new completed building through the utilization of design techniques inspired by the ruins themselves yields a new locus of community engagement that also exists as a continuation of the site's agro-industrial past.