Adaptive Reuse and BIM: Rediscovering Buildings and Creating Architectural Archives
Our cities’ iconic buildings are living archives of history and culture. Beyond new, sustainable construction (such as the Hermès workshop), adaptive reuse, supported by Building Information Modelling (BIM) methodology, offers a key strategy to reimagine these structures and add new chapters to their legacy.
In an era where the built environment is responsible for up to 42% of global carbon emissions, giving new life to these architectural gems is both a necessity and an opportunity for sustainable innovation.
The Soul of the City: What Makes a Building Iconic?
A building becomes iconic not merely through striking design, but when it embodies cultural values, resonates emotionally with society, and stands as a historical or social landmark. Consider the Eiffel Tower or the Roman Colosseum; their silhouettes are instantly recognisable and evoke a flood of meaning.
These structures were often innovations in their time, whether through the use of materials or astonishing engineering, becoming symbols of key moments. However, this iconic status doesn’t guarantee their survival, but by considering adaptive reuse with the support of technology, it can be the key to their preservation.
Adaptive Reuse: More Than Just Renovation
Adaptive reuse redefines a building’s purpose by transforming it without sacrificing its original essence. Far from being a simple modernisation, it involves a dialogue between its past and its future potential.
This practice offers many benefits, starting with its positive impact on environmental sustainability, as it significantly reduces waste generation – a considerable achievement given that a new build can take decades to offset its initial ecological footprint. Furthermore, it presents attractive economic viability, generally being more affordable and agile than undertaking a new construction from scratch. Thirdly, its contribution to cultural preservation is invaluable, allowing the maintenance of architectural identity and the unique character of cities, thus creating spaces with history that bridge generations.
Finally, adaptive reuse plays a crucial role in urban regeneration, enabling the transformation of dilapidated areas into dynamic centres that attract activity and, in certain contexts, can even drive gentrification.
Is BIM the Digital Key to Unlocking Heritage?
BIM methodology is a unique tool in adaptive reuse, especially for heritage buildings. It acts as an intelligent database and a dynamic “architectural archive”.
Among the resources BIM offers in building reuse is scan-to-BIM, creating millimeter-accurate “as-built” models from 3D laser scanning and photogrammetry. This is vital when original documentation is scarce or non-existent, as was the case with Notre Dame Cathedral, where pre-fire scanning was crucial for its reconstruction.
HBIM (Heritage BIM) is the specialization of BIM for heritage, integrating historical data, materials, condition surveys, and decay patterns into the 3D model. Design and simulation allow for simulating different intervention options, analyzing the structure, predicting energy performance, and detecting clashes between new systems and the historical structure, avoiding costly errors on site.
A BIM model also facilitates seamless collaboration as all information is available in a Common Data Environment (CDE), ensuring all multidisciplinary teams work with the most up-to-date information in real time. Interoperability through open formats like IFC is key.
In this way, the BIM model becomes a “digital twin” for the long-term operation and maintenance of the reused building, optimizing its performance and longevity, meaning it becomes the key tool in lifecycle management.
Examples of Icons Revived with BIM
The application of BIM in adaptive reuse is leaving its mark on emblematic projects, something we see happening today. Here are some notable projects from recent years:
- Elbphilharmonie, Hamburg (Herzog & de Meuron): This spectacular concert hall sits atop the Kaispeicher A, a former brick warehouse. The new glass structure with its undulating roof required extremely high-precision digital modelling. An outstanding example is the auditorium’s “White Skin”, composed of 10,000 unique gypsum fibre acoustic panels, parametrically designed and digitally fabricated with CNC for perfect acoustics.
- World of Wine (Broadway Malyan): A complex of over 200-year-old Port wine cellars was transformed into a vibrant cultural and entertainment district. Given the complexity of restoring multiple historic buildings on a steep hillside and integrating modern infrastructure, the architects and engineers used BIM for integrated design and planning, considering it “impossible to deliver without this technology”.
- Hospital de Sant Pau, Barcelona (Lluís Domènech i Montaner): This extensive Art Nouveau complex, a UNESCO World Heritage site, has undergone meticulous restoration to convert its historic pavilions into a centre for knowledge and cultural dissemination, while hospital functions were relocated to a new building. The restoration involved recovering the original configuration, reinforcing structures, and adapting spaces for new uses. Recently, a pilot “digital twin” project has been developed for some areas of the Art Nouveau complex and the new hospital, exploring the use of the metaverse for occupancy simulation and immersive experiences, demonstrating an evolution in the use of digital data (potentially derived from BIM models) for the management and future of the site.
