London, Europe Brief News – A new book reveals the best projects finding new uses for factories, grain silos and market halls.
Here are five of the most ingenious – and inspiring – spaces around the globe.
Baoshan WTE Exhibition Centre, Shanghai, China
Kokaistudios
A former steel mill in Shanghai has been turned into an eco-park that includes a new thermo-electric waste-to-energy power plant, wetlands, an exhibition centre and offices. One of the last remaining industrial structures in the city’s Luojing neighbourhood, the factory is a heritage site.
Kibera Hamlets School, Nairobi, Kenya
SelgasCano and Helloeverything
Just as the modular structure of Baoshan means that it can be dismantled and removed for future reuse on an alternative site, a project in Denmark embedded a second life into its initial design.
lila Yangshuo Hotel, Guangxi, China
Vector Architects
Surrounded by ancient villages in an ecologically-protected setting, this abandoned 1960s sugar mill has been converted into a luxury hotel by Vector Architects. The landscape is as much a feature of the site as the buildings, and a structural truss – previously used for transferring sugar cane to the boats on the Li River below – has been stripped back to its functional concrete core, which now frames a newly-built pool.
Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa, Cape Town, South Africa
Heatherwick Studio
This 1920s grain silo on Cape Town’s Victoria & Alfred Waterfront was the tallest building in sub-Saharan Africa until the mid-1970s – and has been decommissioned since 1990. “The agricultural structure is an emblem of South Africa’s colonial history as well as another chapter in its post-Apartheid future,” according to Building for Change.
Kamikatsu Zero Waste Centre, Kamikatsu, Japan
Hiroshi Nakamura & NAP
“In 2003, after the forced decommissioning of its waste incinerator, the municipality issued a Zero Waste Declaration requiring all waste produced by the area’s residents to be reused or recycled to reduce the demands for landfill or incineration,” according to Building for Change. “Rather than increase emissions by shipping waste to the nearest city for processing, a new centre was created where residents can separate and source materials for recycling and reuse.”
