Taking on an adaptive reuse project is a journey of discovery. There are always unknowns to be uncovered, but the discovery process is what makes it interesting, challenging, and rewarding.
Take for instance John Portman & Associates’ involvement in the recently opened Hotel Indigo Atlanta Downtown in Peachtree Center’s 230 building. Our firm designed the building over 50 years ago as a high-rise office tower. We had the original drawings in our archives; you would think that would give us an inside edge. However, the plans did not tell the whole story. We discovered that a half-century of tenant fit-outs, modifications, and upgrades had created a situation where existing conditions were inconsistent from floor to floor and, in some cases, from office to office. Many of the alterations had never been documented, and after 50 years of use and abuse, the basic systems we thought we could utilize as part of the base building infrastructure needed to be excised and replaced.
One advantage when it comes to converting office space into a hotel is that offices are designed as core and shell open floors, with the intent of being “fit out.” Tenants move in and out of spaces all the time and those interior spaces are rebuilt to fit the needs of changing tenants. The challenge of designing around existing interior load-bearing walls or plumbing is not the issue when converting from office to hotel. The challenge arises when the building typology changes from office to mixed use. The strategic insertion of plumbing, electrical, and mechanical into an infrastructure that was designed for much less, with risers and drains and access, which all need to disappear and look seamless, in the end is the reward. In the case of the 230 building, we needed to update the existing outdated base building equipment for the upper floors that remained as office space, while we completely changed the building systems for the lower floors (2-9) that were converted to the Hotel Indigo Atlanta Downtown.
Another factor to consider is location. Working within a dense urban area presents another set of challenges. With the change in use from office to hotel, additional operational issues arise, such as separate staff paths of travel, elevator separation from guests/office tenants and staff, security and parking challenges as well as construction issues. Staging the construction area and storing the necessary materials can be difficult in a building with limited space and daily activity. Now, figure in that there may be existing tenants who will remain in the building throughout the conversion process. The building must be safe for them as well as their customers and disruptions to their work day must be kept to a minimum. Working out solutions to these problems is particularly rewarding in the adaptive reuse of a building that is to become a hotel. Adapting a one-of-a kind building facilitates the delivery of a one-of-a-kind experience. The reuse of an existing building comes with local relevance that creates character and enhances the guest experience by immersing the guests in the unique personality and urban context through the creation of place. Design inspiration can be found within and around the project, which in the end, stiches the old and new back together into something beyond anything it could have been, if it were a green field project.
There are distinct differences between restoration, renovation, and adaptive reuse. The intention and concepts moving forward must be clear in advance, in order to preserve what makes a historic building special. In most cases you have to update certain aspects today so that the overall project will be useful and relevant for tomorrow. In some cases, the architect may not be able to select those aspects that need to maintained or transformed. Historic preservation guidelines often dictate what can and cannot be done the during renovation/restoration process, although there is an opportunity for discussion and negotiation as the process evolves. This was the case in our Waldorf Astoria Shanghai on the Bund project. Here, a careful combination of preservation and restoration returned a historic club building to its original glory, while transforming it into sumptuous suites and grand public spaces for the hotel. The addition of a new 282-foot-tall tower and public connection space of restaurants and meeting rooms was necessary to enhance the unique offerings of the older building and bring the hotel into the competitive realm of modern day opulence expected by today’s cosmopolitan travelers.
To maintain the integrity of the waterfront of the historic Bund district, great care was taken in the design and positioning of the tower so that its height did not dominate the historic club. Standing at street level, the focus is on the historic building’s ornate and elegant façade. Even the lighting design supports the overall design concept in that the historic club building is allowed to literally shine, while the tower takes on a supporting role, blending into the city’s night skyline. A similar design approach was used in the addition of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Guggenheim Museum in New York City, where the objectification of the original architectural element was enhanced by the addition of an elegant support block that becomes part of the urban field of view.
Adaptive reuse projects can be counted on to present interesting problems, but also to deliver valuable rewards. The very challenges that make it exciting for you as a designer can result in unique and clever uses of the space that deliver an interesting and engaging experience for the guests. Furthermore, because real estate is so interactive with its environment, when you increase the value of an older building, redevelopment and adaptive reuse has a positive, catalytic effect on the surrounding neighborhood and its community.
About the Author
Rob Halverson, AIA, NCARB, is vice president and senior project manager for John Portman & Associates.
