#adaptive-reuse

#adaptive-reuse

The modular, lightweight structure dialogues with the formerly abandoned Brutalist building housing the museum, transforming its skeletal concrete structure and its surrounding land into spaces for use, care, and encounter. The project reflects on the boundaries between unfinished urban architecture and the landscape, foregrounding the labor and stewardship often invisible in both urban and institutional contexts.

Emerging in large numbers during Vietnam's construction boom of the 1990s, tube houses are defined by their narrow plots and deep plans, often resulting in dim and stuffy interiors. Exutoire reorganizes the core of the building and relocates the staircase, previously positioned at the center and acting as a spatial barrier, to the back of the plot and removes transverse partitions to open up each level, allowing light and air to travel freely through the depth of the house.

The Exeter Road Pavilion is an adaptive reuse of a modest Victorian garden outbuilding in northwest London, redesigned for an art collector and amateur DJ who wanted a place equally suited to storing books, records, and artworks as to hosting garden gatherings, workouts, and the occasional ping-pong match. Our brief was twofold: create an interior cabinet for storage and an exterior canopy for shelter. From the outset, we saw these as a single architectural problem rather than two separate tasks.

Maxime Verret + 25 Office Lead Architects: Arthur Boustouller (CALQ Architecture), Axel Cornu, Gabriel Verret (COVE Architectes) Design Team: COVE Architectes, CALQ Architecture Architecture Offices: CALQ Architecture Interior Design: Ramy Fischler Studio Engineering & Consulting > Other: Mazet & Associes, Ceef BET Engineering & Consulting > Structural: Egitura Engineering & Consulting > Electrical: Pollen Engineering & Consulting > Environmental Sustainability: Citae

Jonas Bjerre-Poulsen + 19 Category: Barn, Houses, Adaptive Reuse More SpecsLess Specs Jonas Bjerre-Poulsen Text description provided by the architects. Set close to a small harbour, Lakeshore Barn House is shaped by restraint and clarity, drawing from the familiar silhouette of rural barns to sit naturally within the small lakeside village. The simple cross- shaped layout establishes a central axis that opens uninterrupted views through the house in both directions, strengthening the connection between landscape and interior.

The expansion of Dexamenes Seaside Hotel extends K-Studio's transformation of a former wine factory into a coastal retreat in Greece. When the hotel first opened in 2019 in the western Peloponnese (see designboom's coverage here), its identity was shaped by the adaptive reuse of concrete fermentation tanks set directly along the Ionian shore. The cylindrical structures, once vessels for wine production, were converted into Beachfront Wine Tank Suites.

Across towns and city centers, they carry the shifting architectural ambitions of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, from Greek Revival formality to Beaux-Arts monumentality and Art Deco ornament. Architects and federal planners would give these buildings a clear public role and a powerful physical presence. Stone façades, monumental halls, and crafted interiors projected stability, trust, and permanence. The post office placed the federal government directly into the everyday landscape of American life.

Ba-rro: "Our starting point is always the context and what already exists." We are interested in recognizing the value of things simply because they are there, without assuming that everything must be preserved as a matter of principle. The question isn't what can be kept, but what deserves to be kept in each specific project. The decision to preserve, reveal, or remove doesn't stem from universal values or a nostalgic impulse, but from a situated interpretation:

Set on the edge of the Mediterranean and shaped by centuries of continuous occupation, Naples is a city where architecture is inseparable from time. Layers of Greek foundations, Roman infrastructures, medieval churches, Baroque palaces, and Modern interventions coexist within a dense and compact urban fabric. Naples reveals itself as an accumulation of structures, adaptations, and reuse, where buildings are rarely isolated objects and more often part of a larger spatial, social, and historical system.

Anna Odulinska + 28 Category: Mixed Use Architecture Design Team: Paul Stavert, Meagan Kerr, Daan Masmeijer, Stefan de Meijer, Martijn Ravia, Thomas Ponds, Maarten Diederix, Stefan Prins, Erwin van Strien, Gert Ververs, Giovanni Coni, Yoon Kyun (Peter) Lee, Ahmad Hallak, Robbert Verheij, Phillip Weber, Lesia Topolynk, Antonia Pohankova, Loz Mills, Sven Janse Landscape Architecture: DELVA Landscape Architecture & Urbanism

Napat Pattrayanond + 20 More SpecsLess Specs Napat Pattrayanond Text description provided by the architects. Museum Of Broken Relationships is a renovation and a transformation of a historical Chiang Mai building into a museum space. The building, originally a shop and a warehouse built in 1904, had already been altered various times.

The Aqualudic Center "L'O" is located a ten-minute walk from Orleans train station, occupying the former site of the city's jail, decommissioned in 2014.

Titled "في الحِلّ والترحال" / In Interludes and Transitions, the exhibition is led by Co-Artistic Directors Nora Razian and Sabih Ahmed, while Milan-based architect Sammy Zarka contributed as the Associate Architect and Exhibition Designer. The exhibition scenography is designed by Formafantasma, and the event brings together more than 65 artists from over 37 countries, including more than 25 newly commissioned works.

Inspired by Margot's post last week on the stellar, nontraditional kitchens she spotted on the websites of European real estate firms, I found myself perusing the listings of my favorite U.K. agency, The Modern House, and there, I came across an especially dreamy offering: a rambling two-acre, multi-building property purchased by a pair of artists, Leila El-Kayem and Sophie Mayer, who lovingly transformed the dilapidated Victorian walled garden into a stylish retreat that's appealingly rough around the edges.

Designed by Vi.architectuuratelier, De Zwarte Fles office renovation stands on the village square of Zwijnaarde near Gent, Belgium and brings new working life to a former country house shaped by four centuries of change. The project combines a restoration with a compact office addition fronted by a decorative facade, allowing the historic building to return to a residential presence while supporting a contemporary studio program.

Text description provided by the architects.

This is monumental for the city.

Text description provided by the architects. The expansion project of CPP College arises from the need to adapt the school space to new usage demands, respecting the identity of the original architectural ensemble, which was also designed by our office. The main question was to understand how to intervene in an already established architecture, adding value without compromising the existing language and harmony.

Luca Bosco + 34 Category: Houses, Renovation Design Team: Sarah Becchio, Paolo Borghino Collaborators: Andrea Loi, Francesco Sordo, Ilaria Boggiatto, Emma Colella, Margherita Randazzo Site Construction Supervision: Paolo Borghino Structural Design And Construction Site Safety: Fabio Borello Window/Door Frames: BrunettoLegno Timber Construction: Clen Legnami More SpecsLess Specs Luca Bosco Text description provided by the architects. At the entrance to the Po Valley, in the province of Cuneo,

Sometimes the best architecture happens when designers refuse to accept what's been left behind. The Hangzhou Empathy Museum, completed in 2025 by TAOA, is one of those rare projects that transforms architectural leftovers into something genuinely captivating. What started as an abandoned community project in Hangzhou's Xiaoshan District has become a striking contemporary art space that seems to hover above the ground.

A new chapter unfolds for the arts in San Jose as Starting Arts prepares to relocate to two vacant buildings in the North San Pedro District this May. The nonprofit, dedicated to student arts programs, will transform a former courthouse and MMA gym into a vibrant hub called The Shared Arts Center of San Jose. Spanning 25,000 square feet at 99 Notre Dame Avenue and 92 Sharks Way, this space addresses the long-standing need for affordable venues where creative groups can thrive together.

Text description provided by the architects. On the banks of the river in Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue, Montreal, Mise à Jour Studio undertook thecomprehensive transformation of a heritage home. Formerly divided between a residence and a medical office occupying nearly half of the ground floor, the intervention opens up the spaces and enhances visual connections to the river, while bringing new light into the heart of the house.

Rather than replacing this structure, the project sought to preserve its spatial clarity while updating it for contemporary use as a combined residence and guesthouse. Rising construction costs further reinforced the decision to work carefully with the existing building. The design is based on the idea of 'enclosure' as a recurring condition across different scales: the valley that surrounds Hakone, the forest enclosing the site,