Change of architecture in London

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Table of Contents

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION1

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW3

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY5

Research Design5

Literature Search5

CHAPTER 4: PROPOSED OUTCOMES6

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

n communities nationwide, progress has meant tearing down the past to make way for the future. The problem is that it strips communities of their history and character. In NH, Yankee frugality has meant that historic buildings have found new life as business centers for a myriad of companies. Because of that, NH has long been on the cutting edge of the adaptive reuse movement, a trend that started in the 1970s.

And while a nightclub may not be the best match for a renovated mill building, that doesn't mean a building can't be home to wildly divergent businesses over the span of its life. During the past 150 years, 40 Park Lane in Contoocook has gone through dramatic transformations, evolving from a large chicken coop to an assembly plant for amusement park rides. But the building went dark for years when the amusement business closed.

That is until NFI North, a special education school, decided to call it home, giving the building new life and a new look in fall of 2001 with the help of Sheerr McCrystal Palson Architecture in New London.

"The slab-on-grade building offered plenty of space, but little else appropriate to a school. Years of additions had resulted in quirky and isolated spaces and numerous step-ups and step-downs. The high bay truck garage lent itself to indoor recreation and assembly, but lacked windows, interior finishes and adequate insulation. A new corridor system, sized to public school standards had to be superimposed over the unrelated existing plan," the architectural firm explains on its Web site.

SoHo in New York, once known as Hell's Hundred Acres, transformed from a rundown industrial warehouse district into one of the hippest areas with a non-fussy industrial aesthetic.

Southwark, once a marshy area, reinvented as London's spiffiest restaurant and entertainment destination, with Shakespeare's Globe Theatre, Tate Modern and chic restaurants, bars and elegant dining venues.

In Paris, the grand railway station of Gare d'Orsay shut down in the 70s, but an ambitious reuse project created a stunning museum space for modern art in the Muse d'Orsay, under the watchful eye of Italian architect Gae Aulenti. Sherban Cantacuzino's rationale for adaptive reuse was good 20 years ago and sounds perfectly relevant today, "The wide-scale destruction and renewal of old quarters which have affected, most of the major cities in the world have made us realise that the loss of the familiar can go too far. A second reason is the realisation that the old buildings often do their job better than the new ones.

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

It should perhaps be a condition of any demolition that the new building must always be better than the old which it is replacing. This is not only because new buildings are usually more efficient in energy conservation than new ones, but also because the actual work of rehabilitation or conservation costs in energy terms a mere fraction of the new ...