How Architects Make Confident Adaptive Reuse Decisions

1. First consider whether the aspect under consideration carries the history of the building or simply its age. In selling real estate, original terrazzo floors and old timber-framed windows command great premiums, while a safety issue with a staircase can lose a sale of a unit otherwise well suited to a buyer. If an engineer confirms that an ancient structure is safe and also has character, then that is fine to keep. Surface may be tired, but that would likely cost less to repair than to lose with the sale of a property with such character to be removed. If, however, no one can give a confident answer as to safety or cost to repair, then better to remove and sell and be done with it rather than all the uncertainty this creates. Early inspection to open up walls, test for presence of walls, etc., to lift up floorboards, etc., is cheap to test for unknowns.

2. This is a lesson I learned from an old shophouse that we converted into residential units in Singapore. We were advised to take out all the original timber-louvred windows as some of them were rotten. However, instead we repaired the frames and changed the worst panels. Those windows became the first thing to be photographed by potential viewers and those units were to be leased first. People fall in love more with the authenticity of something and the stories it could tell rather than the perfect finish. So when something is uncertain, ask what would be the cost of losing its story as against the cost of fixing the material.

When I'm not sure about something, I open it up before I decide. Guessing from the surface is where the expensive mistakes happen. We buy and renovate older homes around Cleveland, many built before 1940. On a Cleveland Heights colonial, the original oak floors looked rough, and our first instinct was to replace them. We pulled up a closet corner and found solid boards with plenty of thickness left. A sand and refinish cost a fraction of new flooring and became one of the best features in the listing. It went the other way with a plaster ceiling on the same house. It looked fine, but a small test cut showed the keys had let go, so we replaced it. My approach: make one small, cheap test opening, decide based on what's underneath, and keep original material when it's sound, because buyers notice it.

When an existing building element has an uncertain condition, I decide whether to retain, repair, or replace it by looking at three things: structural integrity, moisture exposure, and whether the underlying assembly can still perform as intended. I never rely on appearance alone; stucco or an exterior wall can look serviceable while concealed water intrusion has already damaged the substrate, so targeted openings and moisture testing are often worth doing before making an expensive decision. If the core assembly is sound and the deterioration is localized, repair usually makes more sense, but widespread damage or a failed waterproofing system can make replacement the safer long-term choice.

One adaptive reuse project reinforced this for me when an older exterior initially appeared to need extensive replacement, but selective investigation showed that much of the original assembly was still solid and the serious deterioration was concentrated around penetrations and areas with poor drainage. We repaired those vulnerable sections, corrected the water-management details, and retained the material that was still performing. The lesson I carried forward is simple: investigate before you demolish, but don't preserve something merely because it is original—keep it when testing shows it can reliably remain part of a durable building envelope.

The question I get asked most isn't about equipment specs — it's "should we keep this or replace it?" And honestly, for a long time, I didn't have a clean answer. I'd walk a job site, look at a 20-year-old air handler still running, and go with my gut. Sometimes that worked. Sometimes it didn't.

The project that changed how I think about this was an old 1980s cold-storage warehouse being converted into creative office space. Great bones — exposed concrete, high ceilings. The developer wanted to preserve as much as possible, and our job was figuring out what stayed and what had to go.

The existing rooftop units were sized for refrigeration loads, not people. They turned on. They moved air. And that's exactly where the trap is — functional and right for the new purpose are two different things. Once we ran load calculations against the new occupancy, it was clear the system was completely mismatched. The ductwork wasn't just old — it was wrong in shape, routing, and capacity for where air actually needed to go now. Keeping it would've meant fighting the building every single day.

That project gave me a framework I still use.

Does it serve the new load, not the old one? Age matters less than fit. A well-maintained 15-year-old unit on a building whose use hasn't changed might have years left. That same unit in a space now packed with people and equipment? Already obsolete, no matter how it looks on the outside.

What's the repair trajectory, not just the repair cost? One service call doesn't tell me much. Three calls in 18 months tells me everything. I want to see the work order history before I quote anything. If we're replacing parts on equipment that was never right for the building to begin with, we're filling a leaking bucket.

Does keeping it actually save money, or just avoid the conversation? People hold onto existing infrastructure because replacement sounds expensive and disruptive. But sometimes keeping something costs more once you factor in energy waste, downtime, and the next repair that's already coming.

The warehouse taught me to separate what the building had from what it needs. Once you make that shift, the decision stops being a gut call. It becomes an engineering answer.

The framework I've landed on is pretty simple, but it took time to actually trust it.

When a building element is in uncertain condition, I ask one question first: what is this thing carrying? Functionally, structurally, and in terms of cost to replicate. If the answer is "a lot," the burden of proof shifts toward keeping it. If the answer is "not much," I'm already thinking about what replaces it.

From there, three checks. One, get an independent assessment, not an in-house read. Someone with no stake in the outcome. Two, what's the real cost gap between repair and replacement, and does it widen over five to seven years? Old industrial steel often pencils out to repair even when it looks rough, because replacing it properly in a dense urban site is expensive. Three, does the original material have performance value you can't replicate? Exposed trusses, original brick with thermal mass. Sometimes you're not preserving something old, you're preserving something better.

The project that sharpened all of this was the renovation of the former industrial building that became The Track at Boston Landing. Early on, there was a real debate about the primary steel frame. It had corrosion in spots, and the instinct from a few people was to tear it out and start clean. But when we looked at the numbers, carrying the loads needed for a dual-terrain track over a concert hall footprint, retaining and reinforcing the existing frame was cheaper and faster than new construction. We were also building to LEED Silver, and keeping that embodied carbon in place genuinely moved the needle.

What I took from that: the elements that look the most uncertain aren't always the most risky to keep. Sometimes it's just deferred maintenance, not structural failure. The judgment gets easier once you stop treating "uncertain condition" as the same thing as "bad condition." They're not.

Uncertain means we don't know yet. So we find out before we decide.

Subject: New pitch - Architect Today

I'm Oliver Brown, Owner of Rusch Design Build, an award-winning renovation company. We've worked on heritage-designated homes where balancing preservation, structural integrity, and modern building standards is an important part of the renovation process.

Our approach is always to retain and repair wherever practical before considering replacement. With older homes, the imperfections and original craftsmanship are often what give the building its character and tell its story.

On one heritage renovation, we encountered significant deterioration in several original building elements. Rather than replacing everything, we repaired individual bricks and carefully cut back damaged sections of wood trim, patching in new material where necessary. The repairs weren't always completely invisible, but that wasn't necessarily a bad thing. They preserved the original craftsmanship and allowed the home to retain its history. the patchwork tells the story and shows the age of the home.

However, preservation can't come at the expense of performance or safety. On that same project, we encountered an original skylight system that had been inadequately designed and had experienced significant failures over time. Repairing individual components wouldn't have addressed the underlying problems, so we had to rethink and replace the entire system using modern construction methods.

My biggest takeaway is that you need to distinguish between a material that's deteriorating and a system that was fundamentally flawed from the beginning.

"If the original element was properly designed and has simply deteriorated with age, our first instinct is to repair it. But if the original design itself is causing the failure, repairing it may only postpone the problem. That's when replacement becomes the responsible choice."

In heritage renovations, the goal shouldn't be to make everything look brand new. It's to preserve what makes the building special while ensuring it can continue performing for generations to come.

I'm happy to share additional examples or discuss our experience further by email or a virtual meeting.

Oliver Brown