An Argu­ment for Main­tain­ing Obso­lete Architecture

Introduction

This arti­cle address­es the grow­ing prob­lem that aris­es when recent his­tor­i­cal build­ings become obso­lete. They should ide­al­ly be altered or refur­bished to ful­fill cur­rent needs to hin­der new con­struc­tion of the same scale on a giv­en site. But their orig­i­nal design often does not fit today's demands with­out requir­ing major inter­ven­tions and maybe uncon­ven­tion­al workarounds as deep retro­fit. Both eco­nom­i­cal­ly, sus­tain­ably, and archi­tec­tural­ly, this cir­cum­stance holds sig­nif­i­cant chal­lenges, and poten­tial­ly it can become an obsta­cle for adapt­ing younger his­tor­i­cal build­ings for new pur­pos­es. Build­ings we may not have yet learned to ​‘love’?

The back­drop of the arti­cle part­ly relates to a prob­lem state­ment cre­at­ed for the grad­u­ate course, Archi­tec­tur­al research and inno­va­tion in present-day con­struc­tion, which is part of the fifth-year semes­ter syl­labus of the grad­u­ate pro­gram: Set­tle­ments, Ecol­o­gy and Tec­ton­ics at the Roy­al Dan­ish Acad­e­my. The course theme of 2024 addressed: Trans­for­ma­tions of the valu­able exist­ing: Val­u­a­tion, design strate­gies and con­struc­tion solu­tions for the trans­for­ma­tion of exist­ing build­ings. It includ­ed a high­ly rel­e­vant case study: Nau­ti­con, which is a rel­a­tive­ly young, large-scale office build­ing from the 1990s, sit­u­at­ed in Copen­hagen, that is planned to be demolished.

Based on the find­ings dis­cussed in the stu­dents' val­ue assess­ment reports, the arti­cle iden­ti­fies and crit­i­cal­ly exam­ines the main fric­tion points between Nauticon's orig­i­nal and present pro­gram (inten­tion of use) and its tec­ton­ic frame­work (cul­tur­al phys­i­cal man­i­fes­ta­tion). The aim is to dis­cuss less destruc­tive and more mean­ing­ful build­ing prac­tices. This arti­cle address­es ​‘a new sort of prob­lem’ — that con­cerns young, well-con­struct­ed build­ings that, due to e.g. their orig­i­nal pro­gram, spa­tial organ­i­sa­tion, and aes­thet­ic appear­ance, are being con­sid­ered out­dat­ed or ​‘worth­less’, and there­fore in dan­ger of being demol­ished. Reports fund­ed by the Dan­ish phil­an­thropic foun­da­tion Real­da­nia have con­clud­ed that mod­ern office build­ings with indus­tri­al­ized con­struc­tion sys­tems typ­i­cal­ly lack recog­ni­tion as valu­able archi­tec­tur­al her­itage, rais­ing ques­tions about pre­serv­ing unap­pre­ci­at­ed build­ings of our recent past.^[1]

The Nau­ti­con build­ing is owned by Dan­i­ca Real Estate, who is among Denmark's largest real estate investors, and until recent­ly, it has been rent­ed out to chang­ing renowned com­pa­nies. The own­er has seen a decreas­ing inter­est in the build­ing for sev­er­al years and con­cludes that it sim­ply does not align with today’s func­tion­al, aes­thet­ic, and tech­ni­cal pref­er­ences. Since the build­ing did not meet the con­tem­po­rary stan­dards sought by com­pa­nies today, the own­er first devel­oped a refur­bish­ment project and lat­er a more com­pre­hen­sive trans­for­ma­tion into a res­i­den­tial pro­gram. Both pro­pos­als were ruled out because they failed to cre­ate the ​‘prod­uct’ that the own­er meant could serve as a real­is­tic busi­ness case.

Adap­tive reuse and trans­for­ma­tion of exist­ing build­ings are impor­tant archi­tec­tur­al strate­gies for reduc­ing the build­ing industry's envi­ron­men­tal impact (GhG) by decreas­ing the demand for new con­struc­tion.^[2] Thus, repro­gram­ming exist­ing struc­tures for reuse and enabling main­tain their rel­e­vance is arguably a less resource-inten­sive inter­ven­tion than demo­li­tion for new con­struc­tion.^[3] How­ev­er, exist­ing struc­tures hold inher­ent tec­ton­ic fea­tures based on their orig­i­nal pro­gram­ming that may be dif­fi­cult to repur­pose.^[4] The mate­r­i­al real­i­ty is already defined in the exist­ing build­ing fab­ric that must be respect­ed as a par­tic­u­lar lan­guage and cul­ture of con­struc­tion. This thought­ful recog­ni­tion of the exist­ing pre­con­di­tions can not only be used to restore his­tor­i­cal build­ing prac­tices but can also be used to build nar­ra­tives for renewed rel­e­vance.^[5]

Research Question

When crit­i­cal­ly address­ing the prob­lem area that is pre­sent­ed in the intro­duc­tion of the arti­cle, it leads to the fol­low­ing research question:

Thus, the ten­sion between tec­ton­ics and the pro­gram described above forms the core of the case study exam­in­ing Nau­ti­con, which rep­re­sents a glob­al com­mer­cial build­ing typol­o­gy often sub­ject­ed to demo­li­tion. Once the build­ing com­plex was con­ceived as a pres­ti­gious ​‘archi­tec­tural­ly designed head­quar­ters’, sym­bol­iz­ing a multi­na­tion­al corporation’s future vision and mar­ket posi­tion, where­as today it fails to be rel­e­vant and is instead seen as an unat­trac­tive, obso­lete struc­ture, dif­fi­cult to adapt for new purposes.

Theory and Research Approach

In this sec­tion, the the­o­ret­i­cal frame­work of the arti­cle is pre­sent­ed togeth­er with the meth­ods used to crit­i­cal­ly dis­cuss why/how this rather young build­ing now faces poten­tial demo­li­tion rather than being reused.

Theoretical Position

Cir­cu­lar sus­tain­abil­i­ty the­o­ry and sci­en­tif­ic data are core ele­ments of the study of this arti­cle. Reusing exist­ing struc­tures as an answer to envi­ron­men­tal impacts and resource scarci­ty is a cen­tral strat­e­gy to reach inter­na­tion­al cli­mate tar­gets.^[6] But, adopt­ing suf­fi­cien­cy as a strat­e­gy could equal­ly low­er resource con­sump­tion and address society's social impli­ca­tions by uti­liz­ing the exist­ing square meters wise­ly and find­ing suit­able func­tions for the build­ings that are already there.^[7]

This focus on pre­vent­ing demo­li­tion and reusing valu­able mate­ri­als and struc­tures aligns with the objec­tives of ​‘adap­tive reuse the­o­ry’, where resus­ci­ta­tion of obso­lete build­ings and pro­lon­ga­tion of the user val­ue and iden­ti­ty are cen­tral themes. Build­ings have his­tor­i­cal­ly been con­sid­ered as evolv­ing enti­ties rather than sta­t­ic mon­u­ments. Euro­peans tra­di­tion­al­ly approached struc­tures with prag­mat­ic adapt­abil­i­ty, con­tin­u­ous­ly mod­i­fy­ing build­ings to meet chang­ing needs.^[8] More­over, pre-indus­tri­al build­ing prac­tices relied on few mate­ri­als joined in sim­ple ways, enabling easy dis­man­tling, recon­fig­u­ra­tion, and reuse. But mod­ern con­struc­tion has aban­doned this evo­lu­tion­ary approach for the ben­e­fit of eco­nom­ic effi­cien­cy, which has cre­at­ed build­ing sys­tems that are fast to con­struct but resis­tant to mod­i­fi­ca­tion.^[9] Also, indus­tri­al­ized sys­tems encour­age design­ing build­ings as ​‘com­plet­ed’ objects with fixed pro­gram­mat­ic require­ments. The shift moved mod­ernism away from view­ing build­ings as con­tin­u­ous­ly devel­op­ing phys­i­cal neces­si­ties toward treat­ing them as tem­po­ral­ly bound, unchange­able structures.

This notion of per­ma­nence is chal­lenged by Stephen Cairns and Jane M. Jacobs in Build­ings Must Die, which address­es the natal­is­tic ten­den­cies in mod­ern archi­tec­ture of prais­ing what is being cre­at­ed. The authors argue for recal­i­brat­ing our under­stand­ing of build­ings as finite enti­ties by incor­po­rat­ing their life cycles of decay and death into archi­tec­tur­al think­ing. They explain how build­ings become obso­lete when they lose “…val­ue, some­times through phys­i­cal dete­ri­o­ra­tion but often as a con­se­quence of new­er or bet­ter alter­na­tives becom­ing available," empha­siz­ing that obso­lete build­ings become struc­tures that are ​"in place but out of time”.[10]

As a ​‘clas­sic’ office build­ing typol­o­gy of the 1990s, Nau­ti­con exem­pli­fies these struc­tures often sub­ject­ed to obso­les­cence — not pri­mar­i­ly due to poor phys­i­cal con­di­tions, but because they have fall­en ​‘out of time’ and lost val­ue due to their ​‘out­dat­ed looks’, lack of flex­i­bil­i­ty in regard of repro­gram­ming, and gen­er­al neg­a­tive asso­ci­a­tion with indus­tri­al­ized con­struc­tion sys­tems. These types of build­ings are not cel­e­brat­ed as cen­tral parts of our com­mon cul­tur­al her­itage and have been high­ly crit­i­cized with­in the pro­fes­sion­al archi­tec­tur­al com­mu­ni­ty.^[11]
Also, the for­mal sys­tem for mea­sur­ing preser­va­tion val­ue in Den­mark — the SAVE method — is only just begin­ning to include build­ings from the peri­od between 1970 to 2000,^[12] but still not embrac­ing them as gen­uine cul­tur­al heritage. 

When look­ing at the Nau­ti­con build­ing, its age is eas­i­ly nar­rowed to a peri­od between the late 80s and ear­ly 90s due to its cor­po­rate archi­tec­tur­al style and bold con­struc­tion fea­tures. But archi­tec­tur­al style is about more than visu­al appear­ance. As Mari Hvat­tum has stat­ed in her book Style and Soli­tude, style is per­ceived “…not (only) as a rep­re­sen­ta­tion of the zeit­geist, but as ongo­ing nego­ti­a­tions of the his­toric­i­ty and agency of architecture’s mate­r­i­al and motifs.”^[13] The appear­ance is deeply con­nect­ed to his­tor­i­cal con­text, cul­tur­al val­ues, expres­sive intent, and the rela­tion­ship between form and func­tion. Hvat­tum builds upon Got­tfried Sem­pers' the­o­ry of style as an artic­u­la­tion and artis­tic pro­cess­ing of a basic idea and “…all intrin­sic and extrin­sic coef­fi­cients that mod­i­fy the embod­i­ment of the theme in a work of art.”^[14]

This aligns with ideas pro­posed by impor­tant tec­ton­ic thinkers and archi­tec­tur­al his­to­ri­ans as Ken­neth Framp­ton, David Leatherbar­row, and James Strike, who in each their way, under­stand build­ings as cor­re­la­tions between dif­fer­ent fac­tors, both phys­i­cal, sys­temic, soci­etal, and cultural.

In Stud­ies in Tec­ton­ic Cul­tures, Framp­ton notes that archi­tec­ture is not only a ​‘visu­al phe­nom­e­non’, but a tac­tile tec­ton­ic prac­tice, where the building's appear­ance derives from its con­struc­tion and mate­ri­als. Framp­ton sees it close­ly relat­ed to the char­ac­ter­is­tics of a place, such as topog­ra­phy, cli­mate, tra­di­tion­al con­struc­tion prac­tices, local mate­ri­als, and crafts.^[15]
Leatherbar­row brings a clear phe­nom­e­no­log­i­cal per­spec­tive into the per­cep­tion of archi­tec­ture when ana­lyz­ing its con­sti­tu­tion­al parts in his books, such as topog­ra­phy, atmos­phere and time.^[16] Final­ly, Strike offers an alter­na­tive his­tor­i­cal account of mod­ern archi­tec­ture (1690 — 1990), when describ­ing the evo­lu­tion­ary changes in archi­tec­tur­al design prac­tice through ongo­ing inno­va­tions in build­ing tech­nol­o­gy, con­struc­tion and pro­duc­tion of build­ing mate­ri­als.^[17]

Spe­cif­ic cir­cum­stances and par­a­digms point to spe­cif­ic solu­tions and results. So, we need to under­stand the afore­men­tioned cor­re­la­tions and hier­ar­chies to be able to grasp the fun­da­men­tal idea and historical/ cul­tur­al val­ue of exist­ing build­ings. As Lil­iane Wong states: ​“Inter­ven­tions to exist­ing build­ings and struc­tures, too, begin with an under­stand­ing of order.”^[18] There­fore, to be able to work with these com­plex rela­tion­ships, it is nec­es­sary to under­stand the pri­or­i­ties embed­ded in the dif­fer­ent lay­ers, hier­ar­chies, and enti­ties of the building.

Research Approach

Based on a fun­da­men­tal tec­ton­ic analy­sis, the arti­cle approach­es the Nau­ti­con build­ing, both the­o­ret­i­cal­ly and method­i­cal­ly, at three dif­fer­ent levels/scales: con­text, build­ing body, and details. This in order to inter­pret their cor­re­la­tions and to get clos­er to the building’s essence and inher­ent mean­ing. The three lev­els refer to Leatherbarrow’s def­i­n­i­tions Site, Enclo­sure, and Mate­r­i­al as fun­da­men­tals in archi­tec­tur­al design prac­tice, which he pro­pos­es as a con­crete the­o­ret­i­cal frame­work in The Roots of Archi­tec­tur­al Inven­tion. This arti­cle employs the same tec­ton­ic fram­ing to analyse and dis­sect the build­ing, ensur­ing a com­pre­hen­sive review of all three lev­els. Leatherbar­row argues that nei­ther style nor form should be dom­i­nant design para­me­ters. Instead, how a build­ing relates to the place/site and cre­ates spa­tial expe­ri­ence through spe­cif­ic use of mate­ri­als are impor­tant to inte­grate by thor­ough analy­sis. In his view build­ings are more than just a pas­sive back­ground — they are active ​‘par­tic­i­pants’ in their spe­cif­ic con­text.^[19]

Sec­ond­ly, the student’s val­ue assess­ment stud­ies and com­pre­hen­sive trans­for­ma­tion pro­pos­als gen­er­at­ed dur­ing the grad­u­ate course have served as valu­able data for the research, along with an eval­u­a­tive ques­tion­naire of the process. Dan­i­ca Real Estate has con­tributed to the course by pro­vid­ing thor­ough infor­ma­tion, stat­ing their view on mar­ket demands and their chal­lenges adapt­ing the build­ing for new pur­pos­es. As an addi­tion­al source, the involved archi­tect, Hen­ning Larsen, has con­tributed with prac­tice-based and project-spe­cif­ic knowl­edge to broad­en the under­stand­ing of the process and its complexities.
We have cir­cum­vent­ed the con­test­ed style of Nau­ti­con, look­ing at the con­stituent ele­ments instead to famil­iar­ize our­selves with the poten­tials of what already exists. By iden­ti­fy­ing the fric­tion and bar­ri­ers for both the orig­i­nal ver­sion of the build­ing and present-day real­i­ty, the hypoth­e­sis is that it will inform the adap­ta­tion for future use of the build­ing and its anchor­ing at the site.

Context and Background of the Case

To test the tec­ton­ic the­o­ry approach that frames the analy­sis of the paper — the Nau­ti­con build­ing acts as a case study. Nau­ti­con is a large office build­ing of a total of 25.000 m²^[20] devel­oped in 1989–90 by the pen­sion fund Skan­dia (today Dan­i­ca Real Estate). It was designed by the Dan­ish archi­tec­tur­al office, Kiel­er Archi­tects. Locat­ed in a for­mer indus­tri­al har­bor dis­trict, the build­ing com­plex her­ald­ed a new era of progress fol­low­ing Copen­hagen city’s strug­gle with depop­u­la­tion, unem­ploy­ment, and eco­nom­ic decline dur­ing the 1980s

The bold archi­tec­tur­al expres­sion clear­ly reflects its his­tor­i­cal ori­gin, yet the build­ing now faces demo­li­tion because ren­o­va­tion and trans­for­ma­tion attempts hold too many bar­ri­ers, cre­at­ing an eco­nom­ic bur­den com­pared to the owner's lev­el of ambi­tion. Over the past 5 years, Dan­i­ca Real Estate has explored var­i­ous reuse strate­gies with con­sul­tants to meet mar­ket demands, includ­ing ren­o­va­tion pro­pos­als by Erik archi­tects and adap­tive reuse plans by the archi­tec­tur­al offices Over Byen and Hen­ning Larsen. A com­pre­hen­sive resource map­ping was con­duct­ed by engi­neer­ing firm Søren Jensen and demo­li­tion com­pa­ny Tsch­ern­ing, cre­at­ing a cat­a­logue of mate­r­i­al cir­cu­lar­i­ty poten­tials. Despite these efforts, Nau­ti­con still exem­pli­fies the chal­lenges faced by sim­i­lar build­ings — struc­tures that are not par­tic­u­lar­ly old but too dif­fi­cult to adapt to chang­ing times and present legislation.

Promi­nent ten­ants have occu­pied the build­ing, such as the Swedish tele­com­pa­ny Eric­s­son, the Dan­ish dairy giant Arla, and the Dan­ish Tax Author­i­ties. The inte­ri­or has been refur­bished accord­ing to the chang­ing needs of spe­cif­ic func­tion­al and aes­thet­ic pref­er­ences of each com­pa­ny. But the exte­ri­or has kept its orig­i­nal state for the past three decades, and unlike many oth­er build­ings, it rep­re­sents a clear sym­bol of a spe­cial time in archi­tec­tur­al his­to­ry. In gen­er­al, this cir­cum­stance rais­es inter­est­ing argu­ments for main­tain­ing new­er his­toric buildings.

Analysis of the Case

Three Interrelated Levels

This arti­cle iden­ti­fies and analy­ses exam­ples of fric­tion points aris­ing between pro­gram­mat­ic require­ments and tec­ton­ic expres­sion across three inter­re­lat­ed lev­els, while con­sid­er­ing how reg­u­la­to­ry frame­works influ­ence Nauticon's archi­tec­tur­al devel­op­ment. By look­ing at the rela­tions between I. Con­text and Build­ing Body, II. Build­ing Body and Floor Plan, and III. Mate­ri­als and Con­struc­tion Details, the inten­tion is to high­light chal­lenges and poten­tials that are found when look­ing close­ly at the dif­fer­ent scales.

The Nauticon Building

The Nau­ti­con build­ing presents itself as a strict­ly con­cep­tu­al and mon­u­men­tal struc­ture posi­tioned on the edge of the water basin. The build­ing com­plex fea­tures four 5‑story Y‑shaped vol­umes in a sym­met­ri­cal lay­out con­nect­ed by three trans­par­ent entrance stair­cas­es. While the facade around the open court­yard towards the water­front is dom­i­nat­ed by blue-coat­ed reflec­tive glass, the rest of the exte­ri­or build­ing expos­es pre­fab­ri­cat­ed, con­crete ele­ments. The heavy con­crete build­ing mass­es stretch in mul­ti­ple direc­tions, cre­at­ing a delib­er­ate mate­r­i­al con­trast with the sharply defined inner facade. This jux­ta­po­si­tion estab­lish­es a clear archi­tec­tur­al hier­ar­chy that bold­ly com­mu­ni­cates the orig­i­nal design intentions.

The struc­ture is con­struct­ed with load-bear­ing sand­wich ele­ments and hol­low-core con­crete slabs span­ning between the facade and the row of con­crete columns and cores. This pro­vides open floor plans that allow flex­i­ble spa­tial arrange­ments and dif­fer­ent uses of spaces. As one of Denmark's first build­ings designed using ful­ly dig­i­tal CAD pro­grams, Nau­ti­con rep­re­sents a sig­nif­i­cant tech­no­log­i­cal advance­ment in con­struc­tion prac­tice and cel­e­brates the era's grow­ing embrace of dig­i­tal design tools.

The Continued Life of the Building

Dan­i­ca Real Estate has strug­gled to attract ten­ants for sev­er­al years. They state that com­pa­nies who are look­ing for a place to lease find the build­ing unap­peal­ing, as ten­ants need to see their cor­po­rate image reflect­ed in their work­space. This includes both aes­thet­ic con­sid­er­a­tions and the grow­ing impor­tance of ​‘green assets’ — orga­ni­za­tions increas­ing­ly pri­or­i­tize envi­ron­men­tal cre­den­tials due to pub­lic atten­tion and pol­i­cy pres­sures. For years, Nauticon's own­er has pur­sued var­i­ous repur­pos­ing strate­gies: an expen­sive retro­fit plan, a cir­cu­la­tion strat­e­gy involv­ing only inte­ri­or sur­face removal, and final­ly a rad­i­cal con­ver­sion project that proved too chal­leng­ing. All togeth­er the bar­ri­ers seem to have over­ruled the advan­tages when look­ing at the way the own­er views and man­ages the build­ing property.

I. The Context and Building Body

The term ​‘con­text’ orig­i­nates from the Latin word con­tex­tus (con=together, texere=weave), mean­ing ​‘a join­ing togeth­er’ or ​‘to weave togeth­er’.^[21] The word refers to the cir­cum­stances or inter­re­lat­ed con­di­tions in which some­thing occurs, and which help to give it mean­ing.^[22] Through an archi­tec­tur­al lens, it is there­fore nat­ur­al to con­sid­er the con­cept as an inter­weav­ing of both the influ­ences from the real­i­ty, the his­tor­i­cal era we are part of, and the local phys­i­cal cir­cum­stances that are cre­at­ed by the building/place itself.

Framp­ton assigns the con­cept of con­text and place a cen­tral sig­nif­i­cance, under­stood through the notion of ​‘Crit­i­cal Region­al­ism’: ​“It is the aim of crit­i­cal region­al­ism to medi­ate the impact of uni­ver­sal civ­i­liza­tion with ele­ments derived indi­rect­ly from the pecu­liar­i­ties of a par­tic­u­lar place.”^[23] He sees con­text as a nec­es­sary coun­ter­part to the place­less­ness and loss of iden­ti­ty that char­ac­ter­izes mod­ernism and the ​’inter­na­tion­al style’. He argues that place is about anchor­ing archi­tec­ture in sen­so­ry and cul­tur­al con­text, as a resis­tance against glob­al homog­e­niza­tion and gener­ic archi­tec­ture. Also, he empha­sizes that tec­ton­ics must be sen­si­tive to the cul­tur­al and phys­i­cal con­text of a place to cre­ate mean­ing­ful, iden­ti­ty-form­ing, and resilient build­ings.^[24]

The Locus of Site and Market-Driven Thinking

This under­stand­ing of con­text is a pre­req­ui­site for the notion ​'Site' that Leatherbar­row dis­cuss­es as one of the fun­da­men­tal con­di­tions for good archi­tec­ture. Leatherbar­row argues that archi­tec­ture always exists in a spe­cif­ic con­text – that is, in a par­tic­u­lar place, which is both phys­i­cal­ly and cul­tur­al­ly con­di­tioned. The build­ing must relate to and be in dia­logue with this place, which makes archi­tec­ture more than just an object, but also part of a larg­er envi­ron­ment, land­scape, or urban space.^[25]

As a pio­neer­ing build­ing in the indus­tri­al area of Copen­hagen South Har­bor, Nau­ti­con turns its heavy con­crete back on the dirty indus­tri­al area and visu­al­ly points its atten­tion (glass facades) to the water­front. The build­ing clos­es in on itself, not relat­ing to the pre­req­ui­sites of place thus vis­i­bil­i­ty from one of the city’s major roads seems pri­or­i­tized over neigh­bor­ing engage­ment. In the trans­formed area, this closed appear­ance is a sig­nif­i­cant prob­lem for inter­ac­tion with the present local com­mu­ni­ty and empha­sizes that Nau­ti­con has a sta­t­ic nature, not able to keep up with time.

With the city's grow­ing wealth and the real estate devel­op­ment of for­mer indus­tri­al areas along the water­front, this site has become increas­ing­ly attrac­tive to investors. It gives the own­er an eco­nom­ic incen­tive to uti­lize the polit­i­cal­ly adopt­ed build­ing cov­er­age ratio of the site, stat­ed in the local munic­i­pal plans, and build more effi­cient square meters than the exist­ing build­ing can pro­vide. From a busi­ness case per­spec­tive, it is thus more prof­itable for the own­er to demol­ish and con­struct a new build­ing. As Leatherbar­row states, site loca­tion is crit­i­cal­ly defined by land own­er­ship and mar­ket val­ue — con­sid­ered as a com­mod­i­ty — but these eco­nom­ic terms pre­vent under­stand­ing of the place's endur­ing qual­i­ties, as they pri­or­i­tize trans­fer­abil­i­ty over archi­tec­tur­al unique­ness.^[26] This is a sig­nif­i­cant sys­temic bar­ri­er to the preser­va­tion of exist­ing struc­tures at the site.

The Industrial Practice and Digital Fascination

Nau­ti­con aligns with the build­ing prac­tices of its time, where indus­tri­al­ly pre­fab­ri­cat­ed con­crete ele­ments have been pre­dom­i­nant in Den­mark since the 1960s and remain so to this day.^[27] The sharply cut vol­umes have both in plan and facade post­mod­ernist fea­tures and almost baroque ele­ments, which show in the dis­tinct sym­met­ri­cal design and angled vol­umes, and the court­yards' lay­out with diag­o­nal­ly ori­ent­ed basins and bridges.

The Y‑shaped blocks are con­text­less, inde­pen­dent vol­umes that pri­or­i­tize spa­tial pro­gram­ming and opti­mal plan effi­cien­cy over site-spe­cif­ic ​‘response’. Accord­ing to the research film ​‘Den­mark builds — var­ied, ratio­nal, qual­i­ty con­struc­tion’.^[28] These blocks could be placed and com­bined in var­i­ous con­fig­u­ra­tions, mak­ing them prod­ucts of the period's focus on indus­tri­al mass pro­duc­tion and the fas­ci­na­tion of the pos­si­bil­i­ties of the dig­i­tal tools, rather than the result of their spe­cif­ic loca­tion. The design does not respond to the actu­al phys­i­cal real­i­ty, such as ori­en­ta­tion accord­ing to day­light, but rather seeks to pri­or­i­tize the pro­gram and stick to the for­mal con­cept. This approach reflects an intro­spec­tive, object-ori­ent­ed archi­tec­tur­al stance that pri­mar­i­ly relates to its for­mal log­ic, rather than engag­ing with its surroundings—a detach­ment that has become even more pro­nounced as the neigh­bor­ing indus­tri­al area has trans­formed into a res­i­den­tial district.

The era’s mate­r­i­al and struc­tur­al choic­es focused on an emerg­ing effi­cien­cy through pre­fab­ri­ca­tion and quick assem­bly. The heavy mate­ri­als were cho­sen for their robust char­ac­ter­is­tics and abil­i­ty to with­stand heavy loads with min­i­mal main­te­nance. The build­ing still stands, visu­al­ly tired but not worn out. Fail­ures occur main­ly at joints where sealants have dete­ri­o­rat­ed, point­ing to the impor­tance of ongo­ing main­te­nance. Com­plex cus­tom solu­tions like the blue-toned in-situ glass facade are chal­leng­ing to repair since they weren't designed for dis­as­sem­bly and replace­ment. This reveals that future repairs weren't in focus, but instead a belief that mate­ri­als and con­struc­tion were durable and could last vir­tu­al­ly indefinitely.

The Reality for Obsolete Buildings

In an attempt to keep up with demand and social devel­op­ment, Nauticon's own­er has invest­ed in projects designed to alter both the building's prop­er­ties, appear­ance, and use. This aligns with the EU's strate­gies for reduc­ing ener­gy con­sump­tion in the build­ing stock, which aims to dou­ble ren­o­va­tion rates by 2030^[29] as well as think­ing about suf­fi­cien­cy in the use of the struc­ture.^[30] This pro­motes refur­bish­ment inter­ven­tions, such as upgrad­ing with fur­ther insu­la­tion or replace­ment of win­dows to low­er ener­gy costs.

But when build­ings as Nau­ti­con need to under­go pro­gram changes – from com­mer­cial to res­i­den­tial or indus­tri­al to office – they must meet cur­rent build­ing reg­u­la­tions for fire, acces­si­bil­i­ty, day­light, ener­gy, sta­t­ics, etc. that dif­fer sig­nif­i­cant­ly from those when the build­ing was con­struct­ed.^[31] And as Dan­ish soci­ety has pri­or­i­tized wel­fare and liv­abil­i­ty, munic­i­pal strate­gies have increased require­ments for cit­i­zen-ori­ent­ed func­tion­al­i­ties since Nau­ti­con was designed. A change to res­i­den­tial pro­grams faces par­tic­u­lar chal­lenges, as demands for recre­ation­al areas, bike stor­age, and depos­i­to­ries, though well-inten­tioned for res­i­dent well­be­ing, can be dif­fi­cult to inte­grate on con­strained sites. While these stan­dards nat­u­ral­ly apply to new con­struc­tion, they are also imposed on exist­ing build­ings when trans­formed, cre­at­ing poten­tial bar­ri­ers for the preser­va­tion and reuse of the build­ing body.

II. The Building Body and Floor Plan

Broadening the Scope of Form and Function

In archi­tec­tur­al the­o­ry, the notion of architecture's con­stituent ele­ments is well estab­lished, par­tic­u­lar­ly in clas­si­cal tec­ton­ic the­o­ry as The Four Ele­ments of Archi­tec­ture by Got­tfried Sem­per.^[32]
In this, Sem­per describes architecture's pri­mor­dial ele­ments as mound, hearth, roof, and enclo­sures. Each ele­ment is under­stood as relat­ed to a craft and to mate­ri­als that pro­vide a cer­tain tec­ton­ic log­ic to the design of each indi­vid­ual ele­ment, as well as the tec­ton­ics of the ele­ments in coher­ence. Sem­pers’ almost anthro­po­log­i­cal analy­sis of the pri­mor­dial hut as an archi­tec­tur­al object, was a reac­tion to the aes­thet­ic focus on styles of the time. With ref­er­ence to Sem­per, Leatherbar­row argues for ques­tion­ing “…a spe­cif­ic geom­e­try of pur­pose, or spa­tial con­fig­u­ra­tion of a plot, with­out assum­ing the antecedent sta­tus of either func­tion or form.” as “…the rad­i­cal basis for full under­stand­ing of archi­tec­tur­al enclo­sure.”^[33]

Ques­tion­ing the cor­re­la­tion between Nauticon’s enclo­sure and floor plan, as pro­po­nents for form, is car­ried out in the following.

The Enclosure and The Plan

It is in the Y‑shaped build­ing blocks and in the con­trast between the heavy struc­tur­al con­crete facade and the sharp­ness of the glazed facades, that we find the main archi­tec­tur­al state­ments of the enclo­sure. As pre­vi­ous­ly men­tioned, these geo­met­ric vol­umes seem to be the con­text­less con­se­quence of design­ing uni­ver­sal build­ing blocks with the spe­cif­ic pur­pose of being an office build­ing. As an office build­ing, this lay­out almost urges a cor­po­rate organ­i­sa­tion to divide ver­ti­cal­ly in the four blocks and hor­i­zon­tal­ly through­out the Y‑shaped floor plans, even with the pos­si­bil­i­ty of organ­is­ing small­er divi­sions with­in each ​‘leg’ of the Ys. The Y‑shape gives three office cor­ri­dors with a tri­an­gu­lar ser­vice core in the cen­ter. Orig­i­nal­ly, Nau­ti­con was intend­ed for one sin­gle com­pa­ny who had own­er­ship of the whole build­ing. Over time, own­er­ship changed, and Nau­ti­con began hous­ing sev­er­al small­er com­pa­nies. The cur­rent sit­u­a­tion with the own­er, a pen­sion fund oblig­ed to make prof­itable choic­es on behalf of its mem­bers, unsuc­cess­ful­ly test­ing the fea­si­bil­i­ty of trans­form­ing Nau­ti­con to accom­mo­date a new pro­gram that is hous­ing — points to ques­tion­ing the plan in rela­tion to the program.

As pre­vi­ous­ly described, the tec­ton­ic lan­guage of Nau­ti­cons’ con­stituent ele­ments is very much char­ac­ter­ized by the indus­tri­al log­ic of its time. The geo­met­ric shape of the Y very much defines the bod­i­ly expe­ri­ence of the enclo­sure. The sym­met­ri­cal lay­out of the four blocks, togeth­er with the sym­me­tries of each open floor plan, makes for a maze­like — even dis­ori­en­tat­ing — expe­ri­ence of mov­ing around between the floors and the blocks. Every­thing seems to be the same, except for the view out of the win­dows. For the design of Nau­ti­con, there seems to have been a trust in Le Corbusier’s mod­ernist argu­ment: ​“The Plan is the gen­er­a­tor. With­out a plan, you have lack of order, and will­full­ness. The Plan holds in itself the essence of sen­sa­tion. The great prob­lem of to-mor­row, dic­tat­ed by col­lec­tive neces­si­ties, put the ques­tion of ​“plan” in a new form. Mod­ern life demands, and is wait­ing for, a new kind of plan, both for the house and for the city.”^[34]

This spe­cif­ic Y‑shaped plan takes great mea­sures to adapt to a dif­fer­ent pro­gram than what was orig­i­nal­ly intend­ed. This indi­cates that Nau­ti­con prob­a­bly nev­er was intend­ed to accom­mo­date any oth­er pro­gram than offices. Though in a dif­fer­ent way than intend­ed, Le Cor­busier is right in that the great prob­lem of tomor­row puts the ques­tion of ​‘plan’ in a new form. From the case of Nau­ti­con it can be argued that the ​‘new form of plan’ should be infused with the geom­e­try of pur­pose, as Leatherbar­row puts it. In the sense that design­ing pur­pose­ful geome­tries for the future instead of for a func­tion of today, could make way for bet­ter adapt­able buildings.

Facades and Daylight

In the short film, pre­vi­ous­ly men­tioned, Nau­ti­con fig­ures as a promi­nent exam­ple of the pos­si­bil­i­ties of the time. It is explained that vari­a­tion and qual­i­ty were key para­me­ters in pre­fab con­struc­tion.^[35] The four blocks are con­nect­ed by three stair­cas­es serv­ing as entrances and the con­fig­u­ra­tion of the blocks next to each oth­er is a ratio­nal way of secur­ing day­light. The com­po­si­tion of facade ele­ments is under­lined by ver­ti­cal and hor­i­zon­tal joints, grooves and pro­tru­sions in the facades. The facades fac­ing out towards the neigh­bor­ing build­ings and roads have small­er square win­dows that appear as a con­tin­u­ous ver­ti­cal band fol­low­ing the out­er facade, with a slight dif­fer­en­ti­a­tion of what looks like con­crete posts vis­i­ble in the facade in the low­er two floors.

The facades fac­ing the court­yard look like cur­tain walls of glass, with a spa­tial pro­tru­sion on the ground floor. How­ev­er, from inside the build­ing, it becomes clear that the facades are struc­tur­al con­crete ele­ments clad in glass pan­els. The archi­tec­tur­al qual­i­ty of these diver­gent expe­ri­ences of the facades from inside and out­side of the build­ing remains unclear. The depth of the build­ing vol­umes makes for grand open spaces, which have been divid­ed into small­er office units, with cor­ri­dors in the cen­ter of the’ legs’ of the Ys. This means that most office units have had day­light from only one side. The win­dows on the glazed facade are placed at a height suit­able for sit­ting at a desk to be able to look out. When stand­ing up there is a beam exact­ly at eye lev­el. One-sided day­light and low win­dows are not nec­es­sar­i­ly a prob­lem for com­mer­cial build­ings, but when adapt­ing to res­i­den­tial use, these issues around day­light and views from win­dows con­sti­tute com­pli­ca­tions. There­fore, efforts made by the build­ing own­er to adapt Nau­ti­con into an apart­ment com­plex has focused on adapt­ing the facade. How­ev­er, because the facades are struc­tur­al, com­pre­hen­sive alter­ations to the facades are need­ed to com­ply with cur­rent reg­u­la­tion on ade­quate day­light in res­i­den­tial space.

These points of fric­tion between the pro­gram man­i­fest­ed in the build­ing body and floor plan, show that fol­low­ing the tec­ton­ic log­ic of the build­ing, Nau­ti­con either should become an exper­i­ment of unit­ing the exist­ing build­ing codes and the need for adapt­abil­i­ty — or Nau­ti­con should remain in use as an office build­ing. Per­haps the rad­i­cal approach for these types of build­ings should be to ask every sin­gu­lar build­ing what it wants to be, instead of try­ing to make it into some­thing it nev­er can become. This approach, how­ev­er, leads to a broad­er dis­cus­sion on the gram­mar of pro­gram­ming the city. Could we suc­cumb to los­ing con­trol over a few of the exist­ing build­ings, where the inher­ent tec­ton­ics assume control?

III. Materials and Construction Details

The Tectonic Problem of Post Modernism

At first glance, the Nau­ti­con build­ing does not give an impres­sion of hav­ing high ambi­tions regard­ing archi­tec­tur­al detail­ing — nei­ther as for elab­o­rate tec­ton­ic prin­ci­ples — nor regard­ing refer­ring to any sort of region­al, cul­tur­al or his­tor­i­cal char­ac­ter traits. At all lev­els the aes­thet­ic appear­ance of the build­ing com­plex sig­nals a high degree of archi­tec­tur­al auton­o­my, show­ing in a series of for­mal­is­tic design fea­tures. It shows in the sym­met­ri­cal uni­form geome­tries, rep­e­ti­tion of large-scale build­ing com­po­nents, dis­tinct mark­ers exem­pli­fied in the steel cov­ered stair­way tow­ers, and a clear­ly stat­ed col­or scheme. A sim­i­lar design approach can be found in the char­ac­ter and tac­tile sense of the few dom­i­nat­ing mate­ri­als applied, e.g. the smooth con­crete sur­faces, the cobalt blue reflect­ing glass panes, and the mas­sive black win­dow frames that frame the apertures.

Ken­neth Framp­ton has elo­quent­ly nailed the over­all prob­lems that char­ac­ter­izes this era in archi­tec­tur­al his­to­ry, empha­siz­ing the lack of archi­tec­tur­al con­tex­tu­al aware­ness at all lev­els. In his piv­otal book, Mod­ern Archi­tec­ture: A crit­i­cal his­to­ry, he states:

And he continues: 

These crit­i­cal cir­cum­stances that defined the archi­tec­tur­al era of the 1980s sug­gest that design pro­pos­als, which could have embraced durable tec­ton­ic prin­ci­ples, may have been sup­pressed for the ben­e­fit of for­mal­is­tic aes­thet­ic ges­tures. Fur­ther­more, the archi­tec­tur­al design pri­mar­i­ly was ruled by the com­mer­cial inter­ests of the devel­op­ers and investors. This also appears to be the case in the Nau­ti­con build­ing. There­fore, it is inter­est­ing to exam­ine how the mate­ri­als play a role regard­ing the for­mal­is­tic design and the tech­ni­cal details. This will be addressed in the following.

The Paradox of the Load-bearing Concrete Façade

Kiel­er Archi­tects may have accept­ed the client’s com­mer­cial inter­ests and may have let them affect the archi­tec­tur­al design?! Upon clos­er exam­i­na­tion of Nauticon’s con­struc­tion details, it becomes evi­dent that the building's struc­tur­al design is tai­lored to the spe­cif­ic pro­gram of the first ten­ant, that was to pro­vide a ​‘mod­ern office space’ which offered effi­cient workspace.

In gen­er­al, the struc­tur­al ele­ments and con­struc­tion joints hold phys­i­cal dimen­sions that have been ​‘opti­mized’ to serve the max­i­mum func­tion­al­i­ty of the build­ing. This shows in heavy load-bear­ing pil­lars and beams, the large span deck ele­ments, and the bespoke steel frames hold­ing the glass facade. How­ev­er, the applied con­struc­tion solu­tions do not allow (eas­i­ly) for any sub­se­quent adap­ta­tions or changes, since major inter­ven­tions will be both tech­ni­cal­ly chal­leng­ing and finan­cial­ly expensive.

As an exam­ple, the load-bear­ing pre­cast con­crete facades are dif­fi­cult to change e.g. cut open or remove, because in addi­tion to serv­ing as the build­ing skin they form the struc­tur­al skele­ton. More­over, the con­crete ele­ments are rein­forced with steel rods above and around the edges of the win­dows to a degree, where cre­at­ing larg­er open­ings for improv­ing the day­light con­di­tions will be tech­ni­cal­ly difficult.
Even minor inter­ven­tions in the facade will inevitably chal­lenge the building's struc­tur­al sys­tem since the join­ing of the con­crete ele­ments is fixed by use of cast con­crete. So, the struc­tur­al sys­tem itself is a prob­lem regard­ing dis­as­sem­bly and alter­ations, since large pre­cast con­crete pan­els tend to col­lect and accen­tu­ate any dif­fer­en­tial move­ment at the joints between the pan­els and there­fore must be fas­tened.^[38] Up until present time it has been the most applied method. So, the core idea of the orig­i­nal pro­gram ​‘to cre­ate open, flex­i­ble floor plans,’ with a spe­cial­ly designed load-bear­ing build­ing sys­tem becomes more of a bar­ri­er than a ben­e­fit when the build­ing must be repurposed.

The Trouble of Separating Layers

In present day analy­sis of reuse and recy­cling of con­struc­tion mate­ri­als, har­vest­ed from exist­ing build­ings, the ​‘reversibil­i­ty ​‘of con­struc­tion solu­tions is cen­tral. This means being able to sep­a­rate the dif­fer­ent mate­ri­als, with­out destruc­t­ing them and to be able to sort them into pure mate­r­i­al frac­tions.[39] It helps to gain the high­est pos­si­ble val­ue embed­ded in the mate­ri­als and com­po­nents.^[40] That includes — car­bon, mate­r­i­al unique­ness and/or cul­tur­al heritage.

Nev­er­the­less, ​‘design for dis­as­sem­bly’ was not thought of at the time when the Nau­ti­con build­ing was designed, rather on the con­trary. To cre­ate robust con­struc­tions and enable effi­cien­cy in the process­es of assem­bly, adhe­sives have been exten­sive­ly used to join and glue the build­ing com­po­nents together.

The dark red-brown trop­i­cal wood par­quet floors can serve as an exam­ple hav­ing been glued to the con­crete floor deck with a tar-based adhe­sive. Attempt­ing to dis­man­tle the floor­boards proves very demand­ing — remov­ing the adhe­sive is dif­fi­cult, mak­ing reuse of the wood chal­leng­ing. This is both because the wood­en bars can­not be applied until ful­ly cleaned, because the adhe­sive is sus­pect­ed of con­tain­ing harm­ful sub­stances that could spread when exposed. This exam­ple demon­strates how build­ing lay­ers are locked togeth­er, depend­ing on each oth­er, and tied to their spe­cif­ic loca­tion in con­struc­tion. Beyond phys­i­cal con­straints, mate­ri­als also become sys­tem­i­cal­ly locked with­in lin­ear eco­nom­ic flows. Chem­i­cal adhe­sives and sealants con­t­a­m­i­nate mate­ri­als, pre­vent­ing imme­di­ate rein­te­gra­tion into cir­cu­lar systems.

Valu­able wood­en floor­ing — now impos­si­ble to source due to defor­esta­tion reg­u­la­tions — los­es its resource val­ue through con­struc­tion meth­ods that pre­clude reuse. CO2 reduc­tions up to 78 per­cent are being missed when not being able to reuse wood­en boards.^[41]

Conclusion

Context and Prerequisites are Essential

The con­clu­sion sug­gests that trans­form­ing the exist­ing fab­ric into some­thing use­ful and mean­ing­ful must nec­es­sar­i­ly relate very close­ly to the already exist­ing con­di­tions and the mate­r­i­al real­i­ty that exists on site. The building’s use-dri­ven pro­gram does hold chal­lenges when search­ing for new pur­pos­es, but the main obsta­cle to tack­le and han­dle is the very rigid con­struc­tion tech­nique, which is dif­fi­cult and cost­ly to alter, and a bar­ri­er to suc­cess­ful cir­cu­lar reuse. Lack of con­tex­tu­al con­nec­tion makes it dif­fi­cult to anchor a reused build­ing in a place and local com­mu­ni­ty, yet this anchor­ing is cru­cial for suc­cess­ful trans­for­ma­tion. Relat­ing to the site and embrac­ing the orig­i­nal design intent helps to cre­ate rel­e­vance in adap­tive reuse, sup­port­ing the change of mindset.

Market and Legislation Must Change Focus

Today's finan­cial real­i­ty makes demol­ish­ing build­ings and prof­it­ing from new con­struc­tion advan­ta­geous. New eco­nom­ic incen­tives are essen­tial to make pre­serv­ing and trans­form­ing build­ings the norm. Exist­ing build­ings should not meet the same require­ments and stan­dards as con­tem­po­rary new con­struc­tion. This pres­sures process­es, cre­ates focus on respon­si­bil­i­ty allo­ca­tion, and ulti­mate­ly hin­ders transformations—and thus preser­va­tion. Author­i­ties need new rules to lean on. Sep­a­rate reg­u­la­tions that don't large­ly equate old with new, but tai­lor require­ments to spe­cif­ic sit­u­a­tions and help sup­port each building's potential.

Buildings Should Dictate Future Use

Forc­ing new pro­grams into build­ings not designed for them becomes unnec­es­sar­i­ly exten­sive and expen­sive. Instead, align­ing pro­grams with exist­ing build­ings’ tec­ton­ic lan­guage min­i­mizes nec­es­sary exten­sive alter­ations. This reduced inter­ven­tion scope—particularly for struc­tur­al systems—is essen­tial for min­i­miz­ing envi­ron­men­tal impact, waste gen­er­a­tion, and vir­gin mate­r­i­al con­sump­tion. Under­stand­ing a building's his­to­ry, fun­da­men­tal con­cept, and build­ing sys­tem should guide future pro­gram­ming. This approach lim­its inter­ven­tions and costs while con­tin­u­ing the archi­tec­tur­al lega­cy. Deep­er under­stand­ing of a building's his­to­ry, design intent, and con­struc­tion prin­ci­ples enables more appro­pri­ate func­tion­al adap­ta­tions. Cre­at­ing new rel­e­vance in exist­ing struc­tures is crit­i­cal for pre­serv­ing build­ing resources in place—without it, build­ings lose mean­ing, dete­ri­o­rate, and face demolition.

A Critical Reflection on Tectonic Barriers and Opportunities

Today, the Nau­ti­con build­ing appears as a con­text­less and intro­spec­tive result, not designed to fit its sur­round­ings, but from a for­mal­is­tic, object-ori­ent­ed idea of the uni­ver­sal opti­mum. The build­ing was con­ceived as the ​‘con­struc­tion of the future’, but it quick­ly became out­dat­ed, not cor­re­spond­ing to society's chang­ing needs, and not adapt­able to func­tion­al or aes­thet­ic expec­ta­tions. The building's rigid con­struc­tion cre­ates clear tec­ton­ic and sys­temic bar­ri­ers to trans­for­ma­tions gen­er­at­ed by new pro­grams. The build­ing itself seems to sug­gest it should remain an office build­ing. And per­haps lim­it­ing the expec­ta­tions to the prof­it could open up for oth­er user groups, embrac­ing the spe­cif­ic archi­tec­tur­al appear­ance of the building.

Economy-thinking and Legislation Obstructs

It is evi­dent how mar­ket think­ing runs the devel­op­ment of build­ings and tends to over­rule oth­er pri­or­i­ties. This cre­ates ​‘safe’, gener­ic archi­tec­tur­al results rather than unique, rel­e­vant, and intrigu­ing ones. Also, it pro­motes demo­li­tion because the eco­nom­ic val­ue of the site must be utilised to the max­i­mum for the own­er. How­ev­er, this presents an obvi­ous oppor­tu­ni­ty for reg­u­la­tions and require­ments to sup­port an alter­na­tive approach that favors build­ing reuse, and by that lim­it­ing the costs, instead of hin­der­ing it. Life Cycle Assess­ment (LCA) leg­is­la­tion for new build­ings in Den­mark, which became a reg­u­la­to­ry require­ment on Jan­u­ary 1^st, 2023, is already affect­ing our mind­set and design approach, sig­nal­ing a shift toward more sus­tain­able con­struc­tion prac­tices that could even­tu­al­ly rebal­ance these eco­nom­ic pri­or­i­ties. These reg­u­la­tions have already been tight­ened by July 1^st, 2025, demon­strat­ing the increas­ing focus on envi­ron­men­tal accountability.

Today’s real­i­ty of exist­ing build­ings hav­ing to abide by leg­is­la­tion designed for new con­struc­tion expands the scope of inter­ven­tions and puts sig­nif­i­cant finan­cial pres­sure on the project, and in many cas­es, mak­ing it unfea­si­ble for the own­er to pre­serve the build­ing. This sys­temic prob­lem becomes a bar­ri­er to the preser­va­tion and reuse of build­ings in gen­er­al. In the long term, one can expect that LCA demands will also extend to exist­ing build­ings, poten­tial­ly cre­at­ing new frame­works that bet­ter rec­og­nize the envi­ron­men­tal ben­e­fits of build­ing reuse and align eco­nom­ic incen­tives with sus­tain­abil­i­ty goals.

Sufficiency Over Efficiency

When deal­ing with obso­lete build­ings like Nau­ti­con that gen­er­al­ly are in good con­di­tion, they should be adapt­able to chang­ing needs and present a ful­ly attrac­tive appear­ance for poten­tial inhab­i­tants. But how can build­ings stay rel­e­vant and be saved from demo­li­tion? This per­spec­tive also points to how the build­ings we con­struct today should incor­po­rate a flex­i­ble design strat­e­gy to safe­guard con­tin­u­ous­ly use of resource and adaptation.

As such this arti­cle has addressed cru­cial issues on the top­ic of main­tain­ing obso­lete archi­tec­ture spe­cial­ly con­cern­ing the rela­tion­al and deter­min­ing char­ac­ter of tec­ton­ics and pro­gram when trans­form­ing an exist­ing building.