There are an increasing number of abandoned industrial sites sitting vacant across the country. These industrial sites occupy valuable real estate, are often heavily contaminated with chemicals that leach into water tables, and can be derelict and unsafe due lack of maintenance. In addition to this, they create voids in the urban fabric that impede development and regeneration around them.
Industrial buildings serve an important role in urban life as the former engines of production and economic centers of communities, but when their doors are shut, they are left to decay. They are not preserved because they lack the historical and symbolic significance that society requires to retain them. They must be reused instead, and in a manner that provides value to the urban fabric and communities around them.
This thesis investigates formal, spatial and programmatic strategies for re-use and development, derived from a survey of extant and planned reuse projects, that allow abandoned industrial buildings to once again be assets in our built environment.