Adaptive Re-development

Overtown -Miami River

One of the areas of urban development I am most curious about is re-development, mostly because it gives spaces a sense of being cyclical as if they were meant to serve different purposes and tell different stories through time. We see these types of structural adaptations mostly in cities that carry a big cultural history on their shoulders like European ones where the need for housing and the pressure for preservation of the city icons meet in peace. This doesn’t mean we cant sometimes encounter one of this gems in a young city like Miami.

The new era of city builders need to master the craft of re-development we often see ¨starchitects¨ create where they manage to give birth to an old structure and give it a new contemporary image while maintaining its essence. An example of this is the latest work by Zaha Hadid Architects, the headquarters by Antwerp:

Source: www.archdaily.com

Above two structures, one contemporary and a pre-existing one meet to create a new one, even though they don't actually meet in any structural point, the whole project is now perceived as one that will be relevant for the decades to come. You could argue about how controversial this work is but in reality, redevelopment offers a way to make these iconic elements shine again while supplying the needs of an ever-growing city and successfully removing the architectural eye sores at the same time.