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Refurbishment: The Latest Architecture and News

Cultural Centers, Museums, and Galleries: Ancient Buildings Transformed into Art Spaces in Latin America

Many buildings often fall into disuse due to our cities' constant economic, social, and technological changes. The programmatic inconsistency of current times demands great versatility and adaptability from our infrastructures, increasingly leading projects to become uninhabited, and left to abandonment and decay.

Next, we present a series of 20 Latin American projects in which old warehouses, homes, prisons, mills, and markets were recovered and transformed into Cultural Centers, Museums, and Galleries.

From Housing to Commerce: The Revitalization of Old Houses and Mansions

Throughout the city's history, buildings have changed their use and function, which is inevitable, as each era presents unique issues and requirements. Factors such as housing types, population density in specific areas, and the emergence of new businesses and services reshape the cityscape, often outpacing the adaptability of existing structures. Therefore, revitalizing or rehabilitating buildings is logical but also necessary to meet the demands of a changing landscape.

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Revitalizing Shanghai's Waterfront: MVRDV's West Bund Dream Center Transforms Industrial Buildings into Cultural Hub

MVRDV has just introduced its comprehensive plan and architectural vision for the construction of the Gate M West Bund Dream Center in Shanghai. Formerly home to a cement plant factory, the design uses the existing structures for cultural programs and combines them with new structures to house new functions. The Dream Center aims to revitalize the riverbank area into a thriving cultural and recreational district.

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The Reconstruction of Notre Dame’s Spire Nears Completion

In April 2019, a devastating fire engulfed the 860-year-old Notre Dame Cathedral in Pars, severely damaging its wooden roof and leading to the collapse of the 19th-century spire, originally designed by Viollet-le-Duc. Immediately after, French President Emmanuel Macron promised that the iconic monument would be restored in just 5 years, an ambitious deadline. As the restoration of the roof structures nears completion, in February 2023, the scaffolding for the reconstruction of the spire has been assembled. The Spire is expected to be finished by the end of the month.

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Renovating For the Future: Sustainable and Resilient Solar Facades

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Renovations involve design processes that transform, refurbish and enhance architectural elements. From gentle aesthetic changes to structural additions, building renovation can improve functionality, safety, and energy efficiency. By integrating new technologies, contemporary strategies are giving new life to existing buildings, propelling already-built projects into the future.

Through their energy-efficient, durable, and bespoke solutions, SolarLab leverages architectural heritage by introducing custom energy-producing facades to existing buildings. By seamlessly combining technologies with design freedom, these solar facades adapt to each project’s style while acting as rain screens with a long, maintenance-free service life. Moreover, by producing sustainable electricity, integrating this system into refurbishment projects contributes to the building’s day-to-day operations, effectively reducing its environmental impact.

Time to Make a Change: When Adaptive Reuse Begets Positive Transformation

When you’ve made a mess, it’s often easier to hold up your hands and start again from scratch. But while it might be a harder way to do it, adaptive reuse – when architecture takes something old and broken and brings it back to life – can have benefits all around.

When planning much-needed social and cultural buildings for public use, instead of using new, virgin materials (or even recycled materials that need to be collected, stripped, reformatted, and transported), there are plenty of pre-made sites already in place. All we have to do is see them.

These adaptive reuse projects take disused buildings, forgotten projects, and unloved environments and transform them into something new, bringing life, positivity, and purpose.

Reinventing History: 20 Remarkable Renovations of Stone Houses in Spain

What does architectural restoration, transformation, or renovation entail? What factors are involved in their processes? When delving into the interiors of Spanish homes, we set out to discover the various methodologies, tools, and technical and construction strategies that are often employed, with stone as the main protagonist.

UMWELT, PRODUCTORA, and LANDMRX will Transform Abandoned Modernist Building into Chile's State Railway Headquarters

The Chilean architectural practice UMWELT, together with the landscape architecture office LANDMRX and the renowned Mexican firm PRODUCTORA, have won first place in the competition for the transformation of the former Correos de Chile (Chilean Postal Service) building located in Estación Central, Santiago. In 2021, EFE (Chile's State Railway Company) acquired the property to convert it into their new corporate headquarters, where the company's employees will work in interaction with the nearby railway operations.

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Henning Larsen Wins Competition for a New Urban Center for West Berlin

Henning Larsen has been selected as the winner of an international competition for the design of Kurfürstendamm 231, a new mixed-use urban development in western Berlin, Germany. Other finalists in the competition included Cobe, David Chipperfield, and Mäckler Architekten. The winning concept centers the neighborhood around an urban courtyard which acts as a large-scale meeting place for the local community. Nine buildings define the courtyard, including the existing Agrippina House, which is set to be rehabilitated through the project.

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Ventilated Facades for Energy-Efficient Building Rehabilitation

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Enhancing the energy performance of existing buildings through refurbishment processes provides the opportunity to create more comfortable and sustainable environments, while also improving their functionality, aesthetics, and safety. Architectural approaches to these renovations encompass various aspects of a building, including interior spaces, structure, internal systems, and facades.

When it comes to rethinking a building's envelope, STACBOND’s composite panel solutions delve into the development of ventilated facades. These facade systems serve as an architectural strategy for energy-efficient building renovations. Minimizing energy consumption for heating and cooling, the rehabilitation strategy incorporates thermal insulation, moisture management, and thermal mass optimization.

Kengo Kuma's Proposal for the Egyptian Museum Expansion in Torino Creates New Urban Axis

Kengo Kuma and Associates have just been awarded second place in an architecture competition to design the expansion and renovation of the Egyptian Museum in Torino, Italy. It served for many decades as the primary civic space in Turin, with its public areas closed off from the rest of the city. Kengo Kuma’s proposal aims to recreate the public plaza, a city center covered by a thin glass canopy. Founded in 1824 and is the oldest museum for Ancient Egyptian culture, the Egyptian Museum in Torino held a competition earlier this year and received entries by Pininfarina Architecture, Carlo Ratti Associati, and Snøhetta. The winning project by OMA / David Gianotten and Andreas Karavanas will transform the museum into a cultural space, creating one covered courtyard and a series of connected urban rooms within the existing settlement.

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MVRDV Reveals Design for the Extensive Renovation Project of the Koblenz Theater in Germany

MVRDV has revealed its design for the extensive renovation project of the Theater Koblenz, in Germany. The project includes an interior redesign and a significant backstage element makeover. The proposal, which operates within the confines of the existing structure, balances the many requirements of the brief: history preservation is taken into account alongside essential technical improvements and roof rehabilitation. Additionally, the operations building's façade on Clemensstraße will be renovated to give this backstage entrance a contemporary, expressive appearance that emphasizes its inclusion in the theater complex, clearly separating it from the building's original guest entrance. The repair preserved a significant portion of the structure for future use and used biodegradable materials as much as feasible to reduce carbon emissions.

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What Would Jane Jacobs Do? Toward a New Model for Houses of Worship

This article was originally published on Common Edge.

Cities need to prepare for a wave of declining houses of worship. While faith institutions, at least the Christian ones, have been asking WWJD (What would Jesus do?), municipalities need to get them to ask another question: WWJJD (What would Jane Jacobs do?). Doing so might lead to a new model for true community houses of worship.

CARE, a New Digital Tool, Helps Designers Quantify the Value of Reuse Versus New Construction

Refurbishment and adaptive reuse have been at the forefront of architectural discourse in recent years. This demonstrates that the profession is becoming increasingly aware of its impact on the environment and the opportunities presented by reusing what has already been built. Architecture 2030 has recently launched CARE, or Carbon Avoided Retrofit Estimator, a new digital tool that enables designers, owners, and communities to quantify the carbon benefits of adaptive reuse. By entering a streamlined set of project information, such as energy targets and potential building interventions, users can quickly estimate both operational carbon emissions generated by the use of the building and embodied carbon emissions, which are tied to the building materials employed.

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AUER WEBER Receives the 2023 DAM Prize for the Extension of the Starnberg District Office

The DAM Preis for Architecture in Germany 2023 has been awarded to Auer Weber for the Extension of the Starnberg District Office. Honoring yearly outstanding buildings in Germany since 2007, the DAM Prize has been bestowed by Deutsches Architekturmuseum (DAM) for the seventh time, in close cooperation with JUNG as a cooperation partner. Fritz Auer and Dominik Fahr from Auer Weber as well as Stefan Frey from Starnberg District Office as the client's representatives received the award, during a ceremony held on January 27, 2023. This year's finalist projects included works by Allmann Sattler Wappner, ELEMENT·A Architekten and Hiendl Schineis Architektenpartnerschaft, Hütten & Paläste Architekten, and LRO Lederer Ragnarsdóttir Oei.

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OMA Wins Competition to Transform World’s Oldest Museum for the Ancient Egyptian Culture in Turin, Italy

OMA / David Gianotten and Andreas Karavanas have won the competition to renovate the world’s oldest museum for Ancient Egyptian culture, the Museo Egizio founded in 1824 and housed in Collegio dei Nobili in Turin, Italy. The winning project aims to put in place a 2024 vision for the Museo Egizio, transforming the museum into a destination for scholars and a rediscovered public place for all.

In collaboration with, local architects Andrea Tabocchini Architecture, T-Studio, and historical consultant Professor Andrea Longhi, the proposal seeks to open the cultural space to all by creating a covered courtyard and a series of connected urban rooms within the existing settlement.

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Refurbishment: Reviving Historic Copenhagen with Modern Design

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Historically home to vikings, kings and queens, Copenhagen is a vibrant city that mingles contemporary architecture with traditional waterways, narrow cobblestone streets, old timbered houses and ancient castles. Filled with history, its buildings embody a historic legacy that traces the memory of all the characters, epoques and events in which the city has passed through. How to keep all this history alive? By refurbishing traditional buildings within modern design, Copenhagen respectfully enjoys its historical architecture while adapting to current trends.

Taking a moment to envisage the existing built environment before addressing a clean slate, refurbishment allows architects to repurpose existing structures for a new use, preserving its character and history while reducing the environmental impact of new constructions. Through the most outstanding cases of rehabilitation of classic buildings in the city, the following article analyzes three different strategies for reusing historic buildings through innovative and sustainable design.