Architecture in Existing Fabric

Book excerpt: Architectural work on existing structures has become enormously important in recent years. For the majority of architects, this is where future market opportunities will lie. This book provides a comprehensive introduction to the field and is thus addressed to all practitioners, students, and building sponsors whose interest goes beyond an initial encounter with this wideranging field of activity. Contradicting the conventional view that creative design work is the exclusive province of new building design, the authors offer a nuanced account of active and creative strategies for planning, design, and execution. Subjects considered range from town planning issues through the overall project cycle and its individual phases all the way to building management. Special focuses are the "grammar of design" as well as the issues arising through collaboration of different experts. In order to illuminate this broad and complex spectrum of topics, the book incorporates thirty examples of projects from Europe and North America, in which buildings from a huge variety of periods – from the Middle Ages to the 1960s – are transferred into the present.