Rethinking Obsolete Typologies confronts one of contemporary urbanism's most pressing material problems: what to do with the petrol stations, shopping centres, offices, cinemas, and churches that social change has rendered redundant across our cities.
About This Book
Mobility, work, retail, and faith — the organising forces behind entire categories of urban building — are being fundamentally restructured. The structures those forces produced are now stranded in the city, draining land, embodying grey energy, and degrading the urban microclimate. Rather than defaulting to demolition, Batista and Siedle argue for transformation governed by three intersecting strategies: the conversion of existing architecture to preserve embodied energy, the intensification of land use, and the strengthening of ecological functions. Through conversion scenarios and schematic diagrams, the book builds a framework for adaptive reuse that is at once pragmatic and spatially specific — essential reading for architects, urban designers, and planners working on the built fabric of the contemporary city.
Key Features
- 304 pages of analytical text, conversion scenarios, and schematic diagrams
- Authors: Anamarija Batista and Julia Siedle
- Typologies examined include petrol stations, offices, shopping centres, cinemas, and churches
- Published by Birkhäuser Verlag
What You'll Discover
- How profound social shifts in mobility, labour, commerce, and religious practice are producing systemic obsolescence across urban building typologies
- A three-part strategic framework for transformation: preserving grey energy through conversion, maximising land use, and improving urban microclimate through ecological intensification
- Concrete conversion scenarios for specific building types — from petrol stations to shopping centres — illustrated through schematic diagrams
- A design-led argument for adaptive reuse as a response to urban obsolescence that is ecological, material, and spatial rather than merely nostalgic
About the Author
Anamarija Batista and Julia Siedle are the authors. [Details available upon request]
Specifications
- Format: Softcover
- Pages: 304
- Dimensions: 17 x 24 cm
- Language: English
- ISBN: 9783035628050
- Publisher: Birkhäuser Verlag
- Publication Date: [Details available upon request]
Perfect For: Architects, urban designers, and planners engaged with adaptive reuse, heritage conservation, and ecological urbanism; researchers and students examining the future of redundant building typologies in cities.