Due to the natural borders that limit the expansion of Manhattan,an estimated ten percent increase in New York City population over the next twenty years will constrict the island’s developable land and threaten low-population/under-developed areas, which include a portion of the fifty-two protected historic districts. The South of Houston neighborhood (SoHo) and its stock of cast iron structures, some almost 150 years old, falls into both of these categories. The Cast Iron District marks influential transitions from traditional masonry into modern steel construction and from the process of manufacturing individual parts to the mass production of multi-purpose (structural, weather barrier, decorative) modular building components. Plans for population expansion are already partially laid out, compiled in the city-released document “PlaNYC” but
do not include specifics about historic districts. Historic preservation has become a method of protecting important buildings from demolition but creates limitations for their adaptation. The alteration of historic buildings is subject to stringent regulation, especially the exterior, limiting the amount of change that can occur. Increasing population will force either the complete redevelopment of underdeveloped land or adaptation to the new context of the city.
Attempting to work within an ever-changing built world, groups of architects, most notably, the Japanese Metabolists of the 1960’s began to explore what future cities would look like. They conceptualized premanufactured blocks inserted within a framework where an entire building or parts of buildings could be added or removed with demand. The Metabolists tapped into an idea that could be applied not just to whole cities and megastructures of the future but also to the existing fabric of cities through interpreting a building as framework, a historic buildingholds the potential of adapting with the surrounding city. SoHo, with it’s history based in multifunctional, premanufactured, modular parts and historically preserved low density provides an excellent case study subject. Through the application of Metabolist ideals to one building, an adaptation concept will suggest how SoHo might develop to keep up with changing demands of the city.