The conflict between our urgent need for more housing, especially affordable housing, and the important role heritage plays in keeping us connected to our past, does have a way forward.
Adaptive reuse of heritage buildings is a worldwide approach to housing that understands older buildings need to be used and not demolished, while accepting that modern life is generally different to the way our forebears lived a century or two ago.
Cities adapt over time. When Sydney was a smaller city of about 2 million people, the detached house in the suburbs was an ideal way to live. Fast-forward to today, with a population of about 5 million, and the organism that is the city needs to develop new ways of living that respond to modern and current lifestyles. The Herald’s excellent series has put a spotlight on how these changes have created a conflict between those who are comfortable in the current suburban environment, and those who are unable to afford a detached house.
Chris Johnson, a former NSW government architect, pictured at Walsh Bay, which is an example of adaptive reuse of heritage buildings.
A new urban cohort of families and singles is now looking at a much more affordable apartment living approach, with shared gardens and amenities. The planning for Sydney’s growth needs to adapt the old to accommodate the new.
Sydney has many examples of adaptive reuse. The Walsh Bay wharves lost their shipping use when container wharves became a more efficient way to transport goods and the wharves became empty. As NSW government architect, I became involved in a growing battle between heritage bodies not wanting change and the potential developer of the site saying it was not feasible to retain every part of the ageing timber structures. We brought adaptive reuse architect, Philippe Robert, out from Paris and a new approach emerged that satisfied most of the parties. With its new uses of arts, theatre, music, offices, restaurants and apartments, it is now a lively precinct that still retains the essence of the old.
Similar adaptive reuses have occurred at Sydney’s GPO, which is now a modern hotel and the Education Department building in Bridge Street, also a hotel. The Queen Victoria Building was rescued from becoming a parking garage and is a lively retail destination. There are similar examples around the world including I. M. Pei’s glass pyramid in the courtyard of the revered Louvre Museum in Paris and the glass dome over London’s British Museum.
Mid-rise apartment living in Zetland, as championed by former NSW government architect Chris Johnson.
More recently in Sydney, ARM Architects undertook an adaptive reuse of the World Heritage-listed Sydney Opera House’s Concert Hall, and won many awards and acclaim from music critics. At the domestic level there are innovative adaptions of unused warehouses into residential use and modern additions to terrace houses that bring natural light and open-plan living to old buildings with small windows and rooms.
Part of the problem we are facing is that those calling for new development and those advocating for the importance of heritage have become set in their ways. There needs to be a path midway between these two extremes. That path is the adaptive reuse of old buildings and the adaptation of precincts and suburbs to become more urban and affordable.
Adapting the old to accommodate the new could ease Sydney’s housing crux
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11.01.2024
The conflict between our urgent need for more housing, especially affordable housing, and the important role heritage plays in keeping us connected to our past, does have a way forward.
Adaptive reuse of heritage buildings is a worldwide approach to housing that understands older buildings need to be used and not demolished, while accepting that modern life is generally different to the way our forebears lived a century or two ago.
Cities adapt over time. When Sydney was a smaller city of about 2 million people, the detached house in the suburbs was an ideal way to live. Fast-forward to today, with a population of about 5 million, and the organism that is the city needs to develop new ways of living that respond to modern and current lifestyles. The Herald’s excellent series has put a spotlight on how these changes have created a........
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