Concrete flooring features in top reuse buildings of 2018

The architecture and design website Spaces has listed its top reuse buildings of 2018, and an important feature of many of the buildings on the list is concrete flooring.

Renovating a derelict industrial building is costly but this has not stopped architects creating innovative designs that reuse these structures. Buildings such as factories, schools and churches that are no longer needed can either be demolished or given a new lease of life by renovating and reusing the buildings for other purposes. Ellen Himelfarb praised nine reuse projects on the Spaces website, saying:

“These nine adaptive reuse schemes blend sympathetic restoration with smart design in a package that will live on as more than the sum of its parts.”

One of the nine projects, the MOCA art gallery is a former car factory in Toronto, Canada redesigned by Peter Clewes. The space was stripped bare and new polished-concrete floors poured.

Wrightwood 659 is an exhibition space in a former 1920s Chicago apartment block that features a concrete floored atrium.

The Utopia Library in Belgium was once a 19th -Century school. The original brick facade has been retained but inside the library looks modern with visitors walking on cantilevered concrete walkways.

Other projects in the list include Coal Drops Yard in London, the Gucci Art Lab near Florence, Italy and the Jaffa Hotel, all of which are housed former disused buildings.

Concrete flooring may be old technology, but it remains the ideal solution for flooring in new or restored commercial buildings.