2024-08-30
29 分钟How does adaptive reuse differ around the globe? We speak to an expert to uncover how Africa does things differently when it comes to giving a building a second life. We also discuss the feeling of safety for women in cities by way of a recent study into our physical and emotional responses to urban environments. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Hello, and welcome to the Urbanist Monocles program, all about the built environment.
I'm your host, Andrew Tuck.
Coming up, when the owner of a part of a building is no more alive, his family allows it to die a natural death.
When a newborn comes in the next generation, he resurrects the building.
So ingrained in our culture, buildings have multiple lives.
We're in Nigeria to see how adaptive reuse plays out in a different urban context and how the life and death of a building takes on a new meaning in Africa.
The physical environment cannot solve these issues on its own.
Even if we design it completely perfectly, it will be surrounded by imperfect women and men.
We're back in London to assess how safe our streets feel for women as we review a recent study looking at more than just statistics to paint a picture of our physical and emotional response to the city.
All that coming up over the next 30 minutes right here on the Urbanist.
With me, Andrew Tuck.
Adaptive reuse is one of those urbanism terms that gets rolled out a lot to describe a number of new projects.
However, the way in which that term manifests itself into actual urban environments can vary widely according to context.
When it comes to African urbanism, the lifespan of a building and what happens when spaces die and are subsequently resurrected can result in a very different reuse case to those that we see in Europe or North America.
James Enaidu George is a Nigerian architect and writer and co founder of HTL Africa, an architecture firm which walks the line between technology and tradition.
James work is deeply rooted in the adaptive reuse practices, and he recently joined Monocle's Carlotta Rabello to discuss his craft.
Let me give you a quick background of why adaptive reuse and adaptive transformation, which is what we call it, have become a very essential part of the architectural language of Africa.
After colonization, a fabric of the city was left unused.
We built a layer on top of that.
This layer that has been built since 1960 is beginning to decay.