Talk About Adaptive Reuse!

This 13th Century church in Maastricht, Netherlands, was re-purposed as a sensationally beautiful, contemporary bookstore. In the USA, we tend to tear buildings like these down because developers feel that the buildings are too difficult to adapt or that they are simply in the way of the developer's objectives.

Because of the dearth of historic preservation incentives, history and culture goes down with bulldozers and wrecking balls. Our own home town of Baltimore has demolished some fabulous old buildings to make way for such projects as high-rises and hospital expansions (requiring huge parking garages).

We do not oppose development, but we see projects like this as examples of the historical benefits and possible magnificence of reuse. The simple comfort of historical space and the urge to reflection they provide is immeasurable.

The Beauty of Re-use

This 230 year old building inspired FNP Architekten in Germany to create a unique blend of modern and aged architecture. Partly demolished in WWII this structure sat idle for decades before these designers figured out a way to insert an entire building within the existing building - providing shelter and protection for the aged structural shell. If innovative architects can make something like this, it would seem that the sky is the limit.

The results are striking and make a wonderful statement about the embodied historic, economic, and material energy present in older structures. If an eighteenth century farm building can be renovated, imagine all of the older historic structures that exist in American inner cities that languish at ineptitude of our civic leaders to provide incentives for their redevelopment. Surely a building that can leverage the embodied energy of three hundred years is worth more to a city and a developer than a newly conceived structure reliant on its own internal architectural / programmatic dialogue to give it meaning and depth.

The Tiny House Movement Gets Bigger

Tumbleweed Weebee at Sunset

The above house is the same one pictured in this New York Times article reviewing the tiny house movement. Rather than being earthbound on a quiet evening at sunset, as it is shown above, the NYT shows the house rolling headlong down a ramp and into the busy traffic of a Los Angeles expressway. The photo offers a symbolic statement of the status of the Tiny House moving right into the flow of the modern world.

The Tiny House movment is not new. It has been a cultish delight ever since Henry David Thoreau first went into the woods and declared the virtues of simplicity. Anyone who knows us, knows of our commitment to the "Not So Big House." The emerging publicity and adoration for the really Tiny House is gratifying to see. Though few of us could live in one, still, they remind us of reducing our acquisitiveness and simplifying our lives. They can provide space for a myriad of uses: studios, retreats, garden escapes, mountain get-a-ways, writing space, music room, etc.

Design Boom recently offered a link to modern Tiny Houses, some of which are quite cool. For those who prefer an urban feel, the tiny house movement has not ignored your sensibilities. No longer will you have to settle for the narrow, bird house look of the traditional tiny house. There are options.


We invite you to view this video created by National Geographic. It features the small, now famous, Penguin House designed by Yasuhiro Yamashita in Tokyo. Yamashita took an extremely small footprint, even for Tokyo standards, and created the illusion of space with high ceilings, wise sight lines, and well-placed windows.

Finally, above, courtesy of the blog Miss Modular, one of our secret delights, is a boxcar called home. The ultimate eco-decision: adaptive reuse. Roll this thing right to Boise, Battle Creek or...Baltimore, you've got a home. We will continue to cover this unique and inspiring movement. The time could not be better.