SustainabiliTEA #5: The Adaptive Reuse Predicament

Introduction

Dr. Gillian Armstrong’s research on the ‘Adaptive Reuse Predicament’ set out to determine which building regulations most obstructed the adaptive reuse of building stock.

The ‘predicament’ was not restrictive building regulations, but underpinning attitudes and assumptions about adaptive reuse that hadn’t been questioned. It was also the complicated nature of vacancy itself, where buildings of different ages were vacant for varying reasons and were rarely completely vacant.

The research led to the creation of the Vacancy Visualisation Analytic Method (VVAM)- a new method for quantifying and visualising building vacancy that can be used to provide a finer grain picture of vacancy from building to building. 

What is the ‘Adaptive Reuse (AR) Predicament’?

Answering this question required both quantitive and qualitative data, each adding a new layer of understanding of what the predicament is. The research found that building regulation is, in fact, not a barrier to adaptive reuse in buildings in the Adelaide CBD.

It’s important to remember that vacancy has different effects on urban centres, and whether there is too much vacancy or too little. While high vacancy rates are a commonly recognised problem, low vacancy results in a tight property market and displaced communities, which is  whole different problem.

In the Adelaide CBD there is a 16% vacancy rate according to Property Council figures. 40% of this is in older grey buildings, while the other 60% constitutes ‘premium’, A, and B grade buildings. New developments currently underway in Adelaide continue to add to the CBD’s square meterage. 

This vacancy breakdown challenges conventional ‘sinking stack’ theory, which is the understanding that as a new building rated at premium grade degrades, vacancy becomes harder to fill until the building is eventually demolished.

Interventions can reverse a building’s move through the ‘sinking’ stack and increase value. Adaptive reuse is one of a handful of techniques requiring medium to high intervention. Other techniques include removal and redevelopment (a high intervention technique), asset exploitation (low intervention) and demand repositioning (medium).

What this new research suggests though is that vacancy is as much an issue in newer buildings, where it can be seen as a precursor to premature obsolescence.

A better understanding of where vacant buildings can help decide which techniques to apply. Common figures are averages, but specific information on which buildings are empty revealed patterns that could hint at the actual reasons behind vacancy in an area, and what policy mechanisms are available to meet demand and stimulate vibrancy.

Factors driving Vacancy

Vacancy appears when there is a discrepancy between the  quality of the building and the expectations of building users as result of societal and technological shifts, low demand or larger economic causes.

Political, economic, sociological, technological, legal and environmental barriers are well covered in research. However, there is a lack of critical analysis of popular views expressed when vacancy is being reported which may yield inaccurate reasons. 

Stakeholders in Adelaide, for example report that development and building code restrictions are the main barriers preventing the transition of ageing commercial buildings into prime residential stock, which is repeated anecdotally and in news headlines. But there was a lack of evidence as to whether this was actually the case. 

Introducing VVAM (Vacancy Visualisation Analytic Method)

To address this lack of evidence, a key outcome of the paper was to develop VVAM – the Vacancy Visualisation Analytic Method. VVAM repurposes secondary data to provide a more detailed visualisation of vacancy from building to building. The calculations and visuals can also be constructed using widely available tools such as Excel, addressing a common criticism that academic tools are often too specialised and expensive to be useful in practice.

• Secondary data can be repurposed to answer specific questions about vacancy  – for example, as determined by a target building population, vacancy rate & the effect of specific policies.
• The data itself exists various in organisations such as council – accessing it is a networking exercise. 
• The data should be checked for reliability, possibly by cross checking it with other sources and the performance of neighbouring buildings. 
• A sample of buildings can be identified using criteria developed from the research questions.
• This results in a chart that visualises vacancy according to five categories: occupied office space, vacant office space, vacant office greyspace, occupied/vacant non-office space.

Key Findings

• Few buildings are wholly empty and ready for whole building adaptive reuse; requiring  considerable legal work to be done that  enables adaptive reuse to happen while current tenants occupy the space. 
• Underuse was spread throughout all office buildings, especially premium & high quality grades. These buildings were up to code and ignored as most attention is focused on lower grade buildings. In these cases adaptive reuse may not be the best solution.
• Challenging stack theory, there seems to be  localised problem of low demand for office, compounded by a reluctance of building owners to convert their buildings to other uses. Low demand for  office space may be indicative low demand for other uses as well. 
• Interviews of people involved in development offered no evidence that the National Construction Code was a barrier to adaptive reuse.  Compliance officers were actually pretty flexible.
• This suggests we need a nuanced, fine grain understanding of vacancy; simplistic averages are not very useful for development sustainable urban solutions; we need a realistic understanding of what AR is capable of. In lieu of addressing perceived problem with building and construction regulation, attention should instead be focused on progressive policy to drive urban vibrancy, while acknowledging that vacancy rates may continue to climb due to COVID anxiety.

Take Home Points for Policy and Practice

• We need extra education on AR – there is currently no textbook on building regulation taught at architecture schools. 
• We need a better understanding of how building regulation is applied state by state to adaptive reuse compliance requirements
• We need to dispel negative myths around ‘restrictive’ building regulation
• Despite what is the problem represented to be in Adelaide – the issue seems to be low demand for office space resulting in high vacancy rates. 
• We need an epidemiology of city vacancy, sharing of data across the city and across cities
• Current examples of adaptive reuse in Adelaide are pretty low quality, such as the Motel Adjacent Casino on Bank Street, which is another issue itself. 

Final Word

Dr. Gillian Armstrong’s research on the ‘Adaptive Reuse Predicament’ set out to determine which building regulations most obstructed the adaptive reuse of building stock. =

The ‘predicament’ was not restrictive building regulations, but underpinning attitudes and assumptions about adaptive reuse that hadn’t been questioned. It was also the complicated nature of vacancy itself, where buildings of different ages were vacant for varying reasons and were rarely completely vacant.

The research led to the creation of the Vacancy Visualisation Analytic Method (VVAM), a new method for quantifying and visualising building vacancy that can be used to provide a finer grain picture of vacancy from building to building.