WELCOME

Welcome to Spring Intersession 2010. Our pre-intersession meeting is scheduled for Wednesday, May 12, 3:00 PM in Room 102, Atkinson Hall.

ADAPTIVE REUSE: To prolong the period from cradle-to-grave for a building by retaining all or most of the structural system and as much as possible of other elements, such as cladding, glass, and interior partitions. Reuse, readaptation, reappropriation of existing or built structures has remote historical precedents. In antiquity, durable, sturdy structures of stone and masonry outlived empires and often changed program many times. In modernity, the desire to preserve historical buildings and neighborhoods emerged in many Western countries out of various romanticist, nationalistic, and historicist streams. Today, the imperative to extend the life cycle of a structure is related to various sustainability goals: sprawl minimization, preservation of virgin materials, and energy conservation. Also, many Western cities are changing dramatically as industrial operations more often than not move to the South and the East leaving massive, sturdy buildings vacant. Institutional nature is also changing with many old hospitals, sanatoriums, military buildings, and even office blocks becoming redundant. AR becomes a means to revitalize urban life and declining neighborhoods. (FROM MIT, GREENING EAST CAMPUS)