Transforming Together: Reconsidering Adaptive Reuse
Emma Elizabeth Crenshaw, MARCH
Thesis committee chair: Peter Noonan, Professor of the Practice
Thesis committee member: Don Linebaugh, Professor and Director, HISP
Thesis committee member: Madlen Simon AIA
Full text available at: http://drum.lib.umd.edu/handle/1903/14316?mode=full
This thesis examines the evolving and transforming relationship between building and community. It is a study of the past and present of a community and its architecture in order to propose an adaptive plan for a place that involves the adaptive reuse of a historic building. Utilizing theory related to vernacular architecture, critical regionalism and phenomenology, a framework for study is applied to a case study. Peckham, a district in South London in England, and one of its former industrial buildings, the Bussey Building, serves as the case-study. Peckham is home for a mixed "fringe" community that is in a process of transformation that is linked to the area's industrial past. In order to explore sustainability in a more holistic and human way, this thesis posits a question: Can architects design buildings to adapt to a continually changing situation, physically mapping the relationship between architecture and community over time?