Adaptive reuse assessment of an industrial warehouse building

Sammanfattning

The built environment includes many historic buildings that are not used to their full potential. Their lifespan can be extended with adaptive reuse strategies, repurposing constructions and introducing new building programs instead of demolishing and rebuilding them. This approach supports sustainability while also preserving heritage buildings. One common strategy is to retain the original building envelope. This project aims to adapt this strategy and introduce a building within a building construction, where the original façade is kept and a new structure is designed inside to accommodate the proposed programs. However, meeting current standards for indoor environmental quality, such as those for daylighting and thermal comfort, remains a challenge, especially when assigning new uses. Ensuring sufficient daylight is particularly difficult in adaptive reuse projects. Existing daylight standards are largely developed for new constructions and often apply uniform requirements regardless of building context or function. In historic buildings where façade alterations may be limited, these standards can restrict adaptable solutions. This project presents a case study where an industrial warehouse in southern Sweden is being adapted for new building programs. The existing envelope is kept preserved as a shell, while a new interior layout is assessed for three potential uses: office, educational and residential. These programs are evaluated and show how the building can remain relevant for future needs. Daylight performance is assessed with daylight factor, target illuminance and minimum target illuminance, vertical illuminance at eye level (as a proxy for circadian potential) and view out. Thermal comfort is evaluated through overheating hours in occupied zones. For the office and educational programs, the open spaces are examined, while in the residential program a few selected apartments are simulated, which were chosen based on their daylight performance. The study assumes that daylight requirements vary depending on the building program, and that a universal assessment approach may be insufficient. It proposes a context-sensitive evaluation of daylight in adaptive reuse projects. While some scenarios may not meet current standards due to spatial constraints, the results suggest that daylight and thermal comfort conditions can still be adequate for certain uses, even when current thresholds are not necessarily achieved.