Message to reuse, not rebuild

Ian Moore studied engineering in New Zealand before becoming an architect: ‘‘A lot of architects love to build things from scratch — a new building that’s all theirs — but I prefer to add a layer to something that already exists,’’ he says. PHOTOS: IAN MOORE ARCHITECTS

People around the world need to "stop knocking down and rebuilding buildings all the time" architect Ian Moore tells Kim Dungey.

Governments need to change their policies about sustainability to include the reuse of existing buildings, award-winning architect Ian Moore says.

A former Kiwi now based in Sydney, Moore specialises in the adaptive reuse of former warehouses and factories. He will present a public lecture, "The Past Needs a Future", in Queenstown next week as part of the Aotearoa Festival of Architecture.

Moore says problems arise when historic buildings are vacant or neglected for long periods and people decide they are "too far gone" and have to be demolished.

"There needs to be action from local government or even the national government to ... change policies about sustainability to incorporate the reuse of existing buildings — particularly in the middle of cities because you don’t want to keep building new buildings further and further out of the centre."

The Strelein Warehouse project in Surrey Hills involved the conversion of a late 19th century warehouse into a two-level home.

Building everything from scratch leaves no trace of history and changes the "social culture" of an area but there is also an environmental cost, he says. While a new building might be more energy-efficient, it can take decades to offset the amount of energy used in its construction.

"The most sustainable building you can possibly have is one that already exists. There’s so much embodied carbon in a building and to then demolish it and build all over again is just unsustainable."

Giving old buildings new uses is not difficult but competing forces are often at play, he says.

"There’s the architects arguing for a sustainable approach to redevelopment ... there’s developers who just want to knock down and rebuild because it’s faster, easier and they make more profit, and there’s the government who’s saying ‘we’ve got to provide more housing for all these people. We’re just going to go the cheapest, easiest route’ and typically, that’s letting the developers do whatever they want."

In Redfern Warehouse, there was a strong emphasis on maintaining an industrial feel to the conversion and the owners asked that no timber, marble or black finishes be used.

Another problem in Sydney is that heritage controls are in many cases enforced by council staff who lack design training or flexibility, he says, adding that putting a third level on a former corner store took seven years to be approved.

"I’ve had to go to the Land and Environment Court 38 times in 35 years, which is outrageous."

However, his impression is that there is "more freedom in New Zealand to do things".

Moore says light industrial buildings tend to be solid and flexible, offering scope to turn them into "all sorts of things", including homes, offices and performance spaces.

His work in Sydney includes an extension to an 1898 butcher’s shop, where the original tiling still exists in what is now the living room and a cool room out the back became a bathroom. While transforming a former grocery warehouse into a residence, he decided all the existing structure would be painted white and all the new elements would be black. In another, a bright yellow stairway references the building’s former life as a Vegemite factory.

"That one was about 950sq m so we were able to cut two huge holes in the building to create internal courtyards and roof terraces so that it had lots of natural light and lots of natural ventilation. It even has a little swimming pool."

This three-storey residence in Sydney was originally a hotel, then a corner store. Recently, a rear addition was completed in glass blocks.

"I just love having big volumes to work with and being able to insert new things — whether it’s a mezzanine or whether it’s some sort of service pod that floats in the middle of the space — but so that you can still understand and read the original building," he says.

"A lot of my work is about doing that — saying this is new and this is old and you don’t blur the two ... you work in a completely contemporary language but you make it sit comfortably with the old."

"The ones I hate are where you get people who try to do a really rustic makeover to make all the new bits look really old. Then it just becomes a confused mess."

■ Ian Moore will present the Sir Ian Athfield Memorial Lecture in Queenstown on Friday, September 5. Other events in the South during the Aotearoa Festival of Architecture will include talks by the UK government’s chief architect, Sarah Allan, and award-winning New Zealand architect Jeremy Smith; movie nights, a pecha kucha evening and a walking tour of historic places in Queenstown. For more information, visit nzia.co.nz/festival.