Building transformation

The Design Research Studio, Studio Adapt! in the postgraduate architecture programme at the University of Cape Town, engaged with transformation through the adaptive redesign of existing structures. This paper will look at activities undertaken by students in the studio environment during the 2017 and 2018 academic years. Starting with the premise that a building could be understood as standing in for abstract thought, the studio introduced the students to a range of theories. Seminars on the found object in art, significance in heritage studies, gentrification, the right to the city, conflicting rationalities, social transformation through spatial transformation and sustainability, encouraged the students to address the problem from multiple angles. More specific concepts were identified by each individual student through field work, including mappings and conversations with the various stakeholders of their selected sites. The students were required to identify the specific characteristics, challenges and potentials of their sites of study and to allow the found potentials to guide their investigations and design moves. Students were encouraged to treat their design interventions as a means through which to instigate dialogue between various conflicting positions surrounding their sites and areas of investigation, and they were required to consider the social and material implications of interventions on a site. Projects by students, both theoretical and practical, are used in this paper to illustrate concepts that hold potential for transformative design practices in adaptive reuse. The research reveals issues of interest embedded in the selected sites and presents possible approaches towards the transformation of the city through a series of design propositions presented by students. These include issues such as the right to the city and social justice, typological disruptions, programmatic adaptations, memory and archaeology, and the adaptation of ways of making. In all cases, the students built on the theoretical framework offered by the studio seminars through a careful reading of the specific character of the existing building, following the narratives provided by the tension between the found form and the new demands brought about by a changed context. In every case the existing was evaluated for what it might offer. Through a series of imaginative explorations, interventions involving various combinations of preservation, erasure and addition, were tested for how they might unlock the hidden potential of these found buildings to contribute to social transformation through their spatial and material transformation.

The Design Research Studio, Studio Adapt! in the postgraduate architecture programme at the University of Cape Town, engaged with transformation through the adaptive redesign of existing structures. This paper will look at activities undertaken by students in the studio environment during the 2017 and 2018 academic years. Starting with the premise that a building could be understood as standing in for abstract thought, the studio introduced the students to a range of theories. Seminars on the found object in art, significance in heritage studies, gentrification, the right to the city, conflicting rationalities, social transformation through spatial transformation and sustainability, encouraged the students to address the problem from multiple angles. More specific concepts were identified by each individual student through field work, including mappings and conversations with the various stakeholders of their selected sites. The students were required to identify the specific characteristics, challenges and potentials of their sites of study and to allow the found potentials to guide their investigations and design moves. Students were encouraged to treat their design interventions as a means through which to instigate dialogue between various conflicting positions surrounding their sites and areas of investigation, and they were required to consider the social and material implications of interventions on a site. Projects by students, both theoretical and practical, are used in this paper to illustrate concepts that hold potential for transformative design practices in adaptive reuse. The research reveals issues of interest embedded in the selected sites and presents possible approaches towards the transformation of the city through a series of design propositions presented by students. These include issues such as the right to the city and social justice, typological disruptions, programmatic adaptations, memory and archaeology, and the adaptation of ways of making. In all cases, the students built on the theoretical framework offered by the studio seminars through a careful reading of the specific character of the existing building, following the narratives provided by the tension between the found form and the new demands brought about by a changed context. In every case the existing was evaluated for what it might offer. Through a series of imaginative explorations, interventions involving various combinations of preservation, erasure and addition, were tested for how they might unlock the hidden potential of these found buildings to contribute to social transformation through their spatial and material transformation.

The Design Research Studio, Studio Adapt! in the postgraduate architecture programme at the University of Cape Town, engaged with transformation through the adaptive redesign of existing structures. This paper will look at activities undertaken by students in the studio environment during the 2017 and 2018 academic years. Starting with the premise that a building could be understood as standing in for abstract thought, the studio introduced the students to a range of theories. Seminars on the found object in art, significance in heritage studies, gentrification, the right to the city, conflicting rationalities, social transformation through spatial transformation and sustainability, encouraged the students to address the problem from multiple angles. More specific concepts were identified by each individual student through field work, including mappings and conversations with the various stakeholders of their selected sites. The students were required to identify the specific characteristics, challenges and potentials of their sites of study and to allow the found potentials to guide their investigations and design moves. Students were encouraged to treat their design interventions as a means through which to instigate dialogue between various conflicting positions surrounding their sites and areas of investigation, and they were required to consider the social and material implications of interventions on a site. Projects by students, both theoretical and practical, are used in this paper to illustrate concepts that hold potential for transformative design practices in adaptive reuse. The research reveals issues of interest embedded in the selected sites and presents possible approaches towards the transformation of the city through a series of design propositions presented by students. These include issues such as the right to the city and social justice, typological disruptions, programmatic adaptations, memory and archaeology, and the adaptation of ways of making. In all cases, the students built on the theoretical framework offered by the studio seminars through a careful reading of the specific character of the existing building, following the narratives provided by the tension between the found form and the new demands brought about by a changed context. In every case the existing was evaluated for what it might offer. Through a series of imaginative explorations, interventions involving various combinations of preservation, erasure and addition, were tested for how they might unlock the hidden potential of these found buildings to contribute to social transformation through their spatial and material transformation.

The Design Research Studio, Studio Adapt! in the postgraduate architecture programme at the University of Cape Town, engaged with transformation through the adaptive redesign of existing structures. This paper will look at activities undertaken by students in the studio environment during the 2017 and 2018 academic years. Starting with the premise that a building could be understood as standing in for abstract thought, the studio introduced the students to a range of theories. Seminars on the found object in art, significance in heritage studies, gentrification, the right to the city, conflicting rationalities, social transformation through spatial transformation and sustainability, encouraged the students to address the problem from multiple angles. More specific concepts were identified by each individual student through field work, including mappings and conversations with the various stakeholders of their selected sites. The students were required to identify the specific characteristics, challenges and potentials of their sites of study and to allow the found potentials to guide their investigations and design moves. Students were encouraged to treat their design interventions as a means through which to instigate dialogue between various conflicting positions surrounding their sites and areas of investigation, and they were required to consider the social and material implications of interventions on a site. Projects by students, both theoretical and practical, are used in this paper to illustrate concepts that hold potential for transformative design practices in adaptive reuse. The research reveals issues of interest embedded in the selected sites and presents possible approaches towards the transformation of the city through a series of design propositions presented by students. These include issues such as the right to the city and social justice, typological disruptions, programmatic adaptations, memory and archaeology, and the adaptation of ways of making. In all cases, the students built on the theoretical framework offered by the studio seminars through a careful reading of the specific character of the existing building, following the narratives provided by the tension between the found form and the new demands brought about by a changed context. In every case the existing was evaluated for what it might offer. Through a series of imaginative explorations, interventions involving various combinations of preservation, erasure and addition, were tested for how they might unlock the hidden potential of these found buildings to contribute to social transformation through their spatial and material transformation.

This paper compares spatial configuration, built form and uses at Tambauzinho and Tambaú areas, in João Pessoa, Brazil. Although it is located between the old city centre and its expansion towards the coast, Tambauzinho presents little urban vitality, different from the expected in a central location, and to what happens in Tambaú. Understanding cities as problems in organized complexity, and that space configures fields of potential movement and encounters, physical attributes work together to facilitate urban vitality. The potential movement to and through places at various scales (according to space syntax framework) were analysed for the city and the areas and compared with built form and uses. Both areas' urban grid present high potential movement; however at Tambauzinho, local physical attributes and a highway crossing the neighbourhood hinder more legibility and walkability, interrupting local flows and visual and physical connections at street level, with poor qualities ...

Buildings preservation by the conversion of their function has become a domain of interest in the field of industrial heritage. Due to the need to expand existing housing capacities in urban areas, a large number of industrial buildings are nowadays converted into multi-family and single-family housing. The paper deals with the analysis of the functional and aesthetic internal transformation of industrial into housing spaces. The research goal is to determine the principles of conceptualization of housing functional plan within the framework of the original physical structure of the industrial building, at the architectonic composition level and housing unit (dwelling) level. Besides, the paper aims to check the existence of common patterns of the aesthetic transformation of converted spaces, examined through three epochs of the development of industrial architecture: the second half of the XIX century, the first half of the XX century and the post-WWII period.

At the global level, the University campuses represent a dominant type of organization of all the living activities of students. This paper dealt with the architectonic analysis of common features of the recent European student hostels, which were constructed as standalone buildings. The analysis presents the advantages and shortcomings of such spatial organization. In detail are considered the common facilities, which are present to a significant degree in such spatial organization, and which can serve as models for construction of student hostels in Serbia.

In recent years, the heritage preservation debate has seen a growing interest in emerging theories in which the concept of potential plays an essential role. Starting from the assumption that memory is an evolving mental construct, the present paper introduces the concept of “transformative potential” in existing buildings. This novel concept regards the inevitability of loss and the self-destructive potential as part of the transformation of each building. The “transformative potential” is defined here as the relationship between spatial settings and material consistency. This research hypothesizes five “transformative potential” types by analyzing five best-practices adapted ruins in the last 15 years. The analysis integrates quantitative and qualitative research methods: morphological analysis (dimensional variations, critical redrawing, configuration patterns) and decay stages evaluation (shearing layers analysis, adaptation approaches). The goal is to test the “transformative p...

In the Netherlands, both the office market and housing market show a mismatch between supply and demand, quantitatively and qualitatively. In 2007 almost 14% of all offices are vacant, i.e. 5.9 million square meters. Experts judge at least 1 million m2 as having no chance at all to be let again as an office. At the same time we see a shortage of about 1 million dwellings. This paper discusses opportunities and risks of converting empty offices into houses. A checklist will be presented that can be used to support the decision whether or not starting a transformation process and a number of go/no go decisions later on. This checklist is partly based on a literature survey on user requirements and preferences with respect to office accommodation and housing, and partly on interviews with parties involved in transformation processes in the Netherlands. The interviewees were asked which features of locations and buildings they considered to be most relevant. An earlier draft of the method has been tested in practice by market players and students of architecture. The five steps method-from quick and dirty to a more thorough, detailed study-include an analysis of the local market and critical characteristics of the location and the building(s), an economic feasibility study and a check on a number of risk factors from a functional, architectonical, juridical and technical point of view. Using veto criteria and gradual criteria, the method shows which features of the location and the building favour successful transformation, and which hinder it.

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A large number of office premises seem difficult to rent out because they no longer meet the demands of the market. A solution must be found for these premises and also for office buildings that have been empty for longer periods. Reallocation to or transformation into other functions such as homes can be envisaged here. In addition, due to the lack of available locations for building homes, corporations and project developers are desperately looking for structural alternatives. The transformation of offices into homes can also be a good option for this objective. In this paper answers are provided to the following questions: which groups of households can be identified for the transformation of empty office buildings into homes; what is the demand profile of these groups; and with which instrument can the transformation potential of empty or soon-to-be empty office buildings be measured.

Purpose-When current accommodation is unsatisfactory, office organisations consider relocating to new accommodation that optimally facilitates their main processes and supports image and financial yield. However, due to high vacancy levels, public opinion and governmental awareness oppose new office construction. Reusing existing buildings could be the egg of Columbus. This paper aims at answering the questions: which property characteristics are important push and pull factors for relocation? What does this mean for the decision: stay or go? Design/methodology/approach-A literature review of factors determining organisations' accommodation choices was conducted. Interviews were held with large-scale office organisations and creative organisations, discussing relocation drivers. Henceforth, a survey was held among creative organisations, collecting data about property characteristics important for their preferences. Finally, office user preferences were compared with characteristics of structurally vacant buildings. Findings-Traditional push factors like car accessibility, extension need, and location and building image remain important. Nowadays sustainability issues like reducing energy consumption and better public transportation accessibility are highly prioritised pull factors as well. Regarding the creative industries, bike-and public transportation accessibility, multi-tenancy, and ICT and meeting facilities are most important. Practical implications-Knowing office users' preferences is important to attract and retain stable tenants. If office space supply is highly aligned to end-users' demands and easily adaptable to changing needs, probably more organisations will decide to stay instead of go, leaving behind empty offices. Originality/value-This study combines data about push and pull factors with relocation decision-making, innovatively focussing on the creative industries. The data can be used to explore opportunities and risks of adaptive re-use of the existing building stock.

Purpose-The vacancy of office buildings leads to financial problems for the owners and social problems for the community, e.g. vandalism, dereliction and deterioration. A solution may be found through the conversion of vacant office buildings into housing. Vacancy-threatened buildings are often part of the mediocre part of the building stock. Does conversion make sense in this case? What are the opportunities, threats and risks? What are the critical success factors? The purpose of this paper is to discuss financial, functional, structural, technical and aesthetic issues. Design/methodology/approach-Through previous research at the Delft University of Technology, tools are developed to decide the potential for the conversion of buildings. This paper discusses the risks and chances, and brakes and triggers of transformation projects, based on case studies. These case studies are performed through interviews with professionals involved in the transformation process and through analyses of architectural drawings of the before and after situations. For each project two interviews were held, with the architect and the developer or client. The interviews focussed on the process of the transformation projects. Findings-The conversion of nondescript and unarticulated buildings makes sense from the point of view of sustainability, both ecologically and in an urban regeneration context. These projects will only be interesting for developers of commercial real estate if they can be made economically feasible. Social housing associations also have additional social goals. Through a longer investment perspective these associations can wait for property increases through long-term externalities as result of upgrading of the area. In buildings that are kept because of economical or social feasibility there are strong connections between the target group, the location and the conversion costs. Practical implications-The tools developed have proved to be useful for quick scans of the potential for building conversion. This paper is a first step in trying to depict a more detailed view of the risks and chances of building conversions. Knowledge of the risks and chances of conversion is required to make decisions concerning transformation projects. Originality/value-The paper develops knowledge about transformation projects and decision support tools for the conversion of buildings, based on empirical studies.

We reflect on our collective cultural Past, to create meaningful interventions in the Present, whilst optimistically speculating on the potentialities of our ecologically and culturally sustainable Future." 1 ("Studio HC", 2021). This is one of the parts from the final research paper consisting of study cases from Hugo Chan, who works as director and architect of Studio HC.

The Design Research Studio, Studio Adapt! in the post-graduate architecture programme at the University of Cape Town, engaged with transformation through the adaptive redesign of existing structures. This paper will look at activities undertaken by students in the studio environment during the 2017 and 2018 academic years.

Starting with the premise that a building could be understood as standing in for abstract thought, the studio introduced the students to a range of theories. Seminars on the found object in art, significance in heritage studies, gentrification, the right to the city, conflicting rationalities, social transformation through spatial transformation and sustainability, encouraged the students to address the problem from multiple angles.

More specific concepts were identified by each individual student through field work, including mappings and conversations with the various stakeholders of their selected sites. The students were required to identify the specific characteristics, challenges and potentials of their sites of study and to allow the found potentials to guide their investigations and design moves. Students were encouraged to treat their design interventions as a means through which to instigate dialogue between various conflicting positions surrounding their sites and areas of investigation, and they were required to consider the social and material implications of interventions on a site.

Projects by students, both theoretical and practical, are used in this paper to illustrate concepts that hold potential for transformative design practices in adaptive reuse. The research reveals issues of interest embedded in the selected sites and presents possible approaches towards the transformation of the city through a series of design propositions presented by students. These include issues such as the right to the city and social justice, typological disruptions, programmatic adaptations, memory and archaeology, and the adaptation of ways of making.

In all cases, the students built on the theoretical framework offered by the studio seminars through a careful reading of the specific character of the existing building, following the narratives provided by the tension between the found form and the new demands brought about by a changed context. In every case the existing was evaluated for what it might offer. Through a series of imaginative explorations, interventions involving various combinations of preservation, erasure and addition, were tested for how they might unlock the hidden potential of these found buildings to contribute to social transformation through their spatial and material transformation.

This paper analysis relations between spatial configuration, uses and built heritage in João Pessoa old city centre (Brazil) as part of a recently finished master thesis. Urban transformations that João Pessoa city, dated 1585, has suffered along its centuries have brought a number of consequences for its initial settlement. Its gradual loss in economic relevance to other urban areas was followed by the arousal of some urban trends, recurrently seen in old centre areas of many large Brazilian cities, such as: degradation and loss of original building styles, vacant or underused premises, loss of residential use, feeling of insecurity. Such trends are emphasized by a rapid linearly oriented expansion of Brazilian cities; João Pessoa, first settled by the river, later directed itself speedily towards the sea. Assuming that spatial configuration impacts on movement in the city and affects modes of city occupation and economic dynamics (Hillier, 1996), this research presents the old city centre morphologic responses, comparing its spatial structure, uses, building maintenance and architectural style conservation. Relations between these attributes were investigated, diagnosing incompatibilities that generated some urban pathologies. For this, ground and upper floors uses and conservation state of circa 1800 properties were surveyed, and related to syntactic integration measures (continuity lines and of angular segment analysis), through comparative maps and graphs. Main observations in João Pessoa old city centre were (i) how morphologic transformations followed processes of use and function alterations; (ii) how roads movement hierarchy reflects on current occupation; (iii) consequences of form/function relations in built heritage conservation. Amongst other findings, there was an alignment between the level of topological importance of the Old centre in João Pessoa, variation in its economic importance and the transformation of uses in the area, culminating in the insertion of functions incompatible with built heritage conservation. The concentration of certain uses according to road hierarchy was also observed in the area, as the presence of few residential groups and larger number vacant premises on more segregated routes, and growing loss of original building styles with increasing potential movement, corroborating trends found in other studies in Brazilian cities (such as Trigueiro & Medeiros, 2003; Carvalho & Trigueiro, 2007;). Overall, three distinct sectors of spatial configuration and uses dynamics were identified, which showed distinct relations with built heritage conservation. The study thus contributed-in light of space syntax-to understand urban dynamics pertaining old centres in larger Brazilian cities, and the damaging effects of rapid loss of centrality in a mainly real-estate oriented planning.

This paper compares spatial configuration, built form and uses at Tambauzinho and Tambaú areas, in João Pessoa, Brazil. Although it is located between the old city centre and its expansion towards the coast, Tambauzinho presents little urban vitality, different from the expected in a central location, and to what happens in Tambaú. Understanding cities as problems in organized complexity, and that space configures fields of potential movement and encounters, physical attributes work together to facilitate urban vitality. The potential movement to and through places at various scales (according to space syntax framework) were analysed for the city and the areas and compared with built form and uses. Both areas' urban grid present high potential movement; however at Tambauzinho, local physical attributes and a highway crossing the neighbourhood hinder more legibility and walkability, interrupting local flows and visual and physical connections at street level, with poor qualities of sidewalks. Limited urban vitality in Tambauzinho is underlined by non-residential uses mostly concentrating at the areas’ northern periphery, whereas at Tambaú, they spread more throughout the area. Problems at Tambauzinho express a mainly vehicular oriented urban planning; understanding negative consequences aims to build knowledge, alleviating problems and re-directing future interventions.

Keywords:  Urban vitality; Spatial configuration; Tambauzinho and Tambaú; Land uses; João Pessoa

The Design Research Studio, Studio Adapt! in the post-graduate architecture programme at the University of Cape Town, engaged with transformation through the adaptive redesign of existing structures. This paper will look at activities undertaken by students in the studio environment during the 2017 and 2018 academic years.

Starting with the premise that a building could be understood as standing in for abstract thought, the studio introduced the students to a range of theories. Seminars on the found object in art, significance in heritage studies, gentrification, the right to the city, conflicting rationalities, social transformation through spatial transformation and sustainability, encouraged the students to address the problem from multiple angles.

More specific concepts were identified by each individual student through field work, including mappings and conversations with the various stakeholders of their selected sites. The students were required to identify the specific characteristics, challenges and potentials of their sites of study and to allow the found potentials to guide their investigations and design moves. Students were encouraged to treat their design interventions as a means through which to instigate dialogue between various conflicting positions surrounding their sites and areas of investigation, and they were required to consider the social and material implications of interventions on a site.

Projects by students, both theoretical and practical, are used in this paper to illustrate concepts that hold potential for transformative design practices in adaptive reuse. The research reveals issues of interest embedded in the selected sites and presents possible approaches towards the transformation of the city through a series of design propositions presented by students. These include issues such as the right to the city and social justice, typological disruptions, programmatic adaptations, memory and archaeology, and the adaptation of ways of making.

In all cases, the students built on the theoretical framework offered by the studio seminars through a careful reading of the specific character of the existing building, following the narratives provided by the tension between the found form and the new demands brought about by a changed context. In every case the existing was evaluated for what it might offer. Through a series of imaginative explorations, interventions involving various combinations of preservation, erasure and addition, were tested for how they might unlock the hidden potential of these found buildings to contribute to social transformation through their spatial and material transformation.

Industrial heritage is an important part of our built environment and landscape. It provides tangible and intangible links to our past and has great potential to play a significant role in the futures of our cities, towns, and rural environments. The protection and redevelopment of industrial heritage can contribute to the building of social and cultural capital, environmental sustainability, and urban regeneration.

This book showcases a selection of works completed since 2010 with a wide global distribution. It highlights an encouraging increase in the practice of the transformation, redevelopment, and adaptive reuse of industrial structures. From under-utilized, disused, or discarded reminders of times past, the latest metamorphoses of buildings and structures have imbued them with new purposes in what could be regarded as one more stage in a continuous process of industrial evolution. The four essays written by authors from a variety of backgrounds and locations offer a rich addition to the selection of case studies and could serve as opportunities for further research. This book provides direct, informational reference to architects, researchers, and decision-makers.

It includes projects located in France, Sweden, China, Spain, Chile, the Netherlands, USA, Germany, Portugal, Denmark, South Africa, Italy, Canada, Thailand, Latvia, Belgium, Estonia, and India.

The propositions raised in this paper respond to the idea that reflective and critical gestures within the urban field often include a productive form of silence. The idea can be conceptualized in relation to disruptive tactics in the formation of structure and agency and explored from within the triangulated framework that exists between gesture, agency and space. It is argued that within such a triangulated framework gesture is only meaningful when reflective and critical, that the emergence of spatial relationships can best be explored through temporal and fluid interstitial conditions, and that agency results from an enabling form of disruption or subversion. The arguments and propositions are informed by cases where a condition of forgiving the unforgivable is politically produced, where narratives of abandonment foreshadow infrastructural collapse, and where curatorial practices make critical artefacts visible in a space of silence. Silence is here entangled within strategic intention as much as in casual or collateral everyday spatial experiences, and to wit, seems to ground our insight into complex urban conditions more than what is commonly acknowledged – allowing us to hear the footsteps of giants in the white sound of crowds running. P

Local Authorities worldwide are encouraging adaptation as a means of reducing building related urban energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. The City of Melbourne is promoting the retrofit of 1,200 CBD properties before 2020 with sustainability measures as part of their policy to become a carbon neutral city. Australian cities date from 1837 to the present day whereas some European cities have been inhabited for over two millennia. The concepts of adaptation and evolution of buildings and suburbs is well developed in Europe, though the scale of some of the post war developments has created different forms of building perhaps less adaptable or suited to change. The need to adapt buildings and to reduce environmental footprints becomes more pressing over time as global concentrations of carbon dioxide increase. Is it possible for Europeans to learn from Australian practices and vice averse? Through examination of office building adaptation in Melbourne and Amsterdam, it is possible to learn where similarities and differences exist and where new practices can be shared. This paper addressed the questions; What are the key attributes influencing adaptations in Melbourne and Amsterdam office buildings, and what are the similarities and differences? Using the Melbourne CBD and Amsterdam as a case study, the research analysed 7393 commercial building adaptations in Melbourne and 98 office buildings in Amsterdam where adaptations were completed. The outcomes of this research show where similarities and differences exist and are relevant to all urban areas where adaptation of existing office buildings can mitigate the impacts of climate change and enhance the city for another generation of citizens and users.

In the Netherlands, the number of realized high-rise projects is limited. Land owners and developers are searching for conditions and boundaries under which high-rise is feasible. The research started on high rise costs with literature review, and by interviewing experts working on high-rise projects and cost modelling. One of the outcomes of the descriptive model is the increase of costs with the increase of height. Land costs are equally important. As is the case for rent levels land costs depend most of all on location. Traditionally land costs are determined based upon the value of land, in which gross floor area is leading. For the developer lettable floor area and efficiency is leading. A sub model is set up for land costs in which the land owner as well as the developer can maximise their profits within reasonable limits. This model will be further developed and discussed in the field.

A large number of office premises seem difficult to rent out because they no longer meet the demands of the market. A solution must be found for these premises and also for office buildings that have been empty for longer periods. Reallocation or transformation to other functions such as homes can be envisaged here. In addition, due to the lack of available locations for building homes, corporations and project developers are desperately looking for alternatives. The transformation of offices into homes can also be a good option for this objective. In the current study answers are provided to the questions: how many and which office buildings stood empty in a particular area of Rotterdam; which groups of households can be identified for the transformation of empty office buildings into homes; what is the demand profile of these groups; and with which instruments can the transformation potential of empty or soon-to-be empty office buildings be measured.

A large number of office premises seem difficult to rent out because they no longer meet the demands of the market. A solution must be found for these premises and also for office buildings that have been empty for longer periods. Reallocation to or transformation into other functions such as homes can be envisaged here. In addition, due to the lack of available locations for building homes, corporations and project developers are desperately looking for structural alternatives. The transformation of offices into homes can also be a good option for this objective. In this paper answers are provided to the following questions: which groups of households can be identified for the transformation of empty office buildings into homes; what is the demand profile of these groups; and with which instrument can the transformation potential of empty or soon-to-be empty office buildings be measured.

Introduction In the Netherlands, both the office market and housing market show a mismatch between supply and demand, quantitatively and qualitatively. In 2007 almost 14% of all offices are vacant, i.e. 5.9 million square metres. Experts judge at least 1 million m 2 as having no chance at all to be let again as an office. At the same time we see a shortage of about 1 million dwellings. The future is uncertain — the present must be adaptable. A building must be able to be changed over its life cycle to adapt to the inevitable evolving needs of its end users. Buildings must remain efficient places to live and work to ensure real life-cycle value, driven by the 3 R's of reduce-reuse-recycle. The first real challenge in the Netherlands is how to make adaptable buildings without creating unnecessary redundancy and without significantly increasing the initial cost. The second challenge is the re-use of old vacant or unoccupied buildings — left by their tenants because they no longer f...

This paper presents a case study describing a five year search for a new building for a Hospice, and the transformation planning, design and construction of an existing hospital building (polyclinic) into a Hospice of 1200 m2 using Open Building as strategy for process and product.

Purpose
The City of Melbourne seeks to retrofit 1,200 CBD properties by 2020 as part of the strategy to become carbon neutral, whilst Amsterdam aims to cut CO2 emissions 40% by 2025. Oversupply in the Amsterdam office market makes conversion to residential use viable. In examining converted buildings in Amsterdam and the Melbourne CBD typical attributes of converted stock can be identified to target retrofit measures.

Design /methodology / approach
In Amsterdam 5 case-studies were undertaken to reveal and define building attributes that explain the viability of these conversions. On the other hand, the Melbourne study was based on a database assembled containing all Melbourne CBD office building adaptations carried out between 1998 and 2008. The research analysed the conversion of office buildings and the scope for sustainable retrofit evaluating a limited number of attributes known to be important in adaptation.

Findings
The outcomes of this research showed similarities and differences in scope which are relevant to all urban areas where adaptation of office buildings can mitigate the impacts of climate change and enhance a city for another generation of citizens and users.

Practical implications
The outcomes highlight the property attributes that explain conversion viability and that are most strongly associated with conversions. In addition the research identifies some sustainability measures that are possible with this type of stock.

Originality / value
This research compares and contrasts qualitative data from a small sample of buildings in Amsterdam with quantitative data from a census of all change of use adaptations in Melbourne from 1998 to 2008. The contrasting approaches makes it possible both to explain the driving forces of adaptations and to deliver statistical evidence of what is described in the case studies. Despite the differing approaches it is possible to compare and contrast the attributes of properties from both cities.

Paper type: Research

Keywords: office, sustainability, building adaptation, Melbourne, Amsterdam.