When LYNC purchased the B & W Feed Mill, it was a clear step toward fulfilling their mission to revitalize people and communities. The vision was to revitalize an old structure and icon in the community by giving it a new use that would itself revitalize the downtown core. This is a practice referred to as “adaptive reuse,” which involves the renovation and reuse of pre-existing structures for new purposes. This process can serve us in many practical ways to address the particular challenges of our time, including affordability, housing, climate change, and sustainability. LYNC is aiming to do all of this and more.
Housing availability and affordability
Over and over we hear that we are in a “housing crisis” right now. We need housing to be created quickly which is intentionally affordable and equitable, while maintaining high quality standards for longevity and durability. One of the challenges to developing quickly is the availability of appropriate land to build on. Yet at the same time, there are many existing and durable buildings that are underutilized or vacant. If these properties can be acquired, housing can be built relatively quickly (with the potential for shorter planning approvals) and affordably. Adaptive reuse, in many cases, has the great benefit of faster constructability, since the structure is already existing. Construction is less dependent on weather conditions or heavy machinery accessing the site, which would be factors with new construction.
Adapting existing structures to new housing
Residential units are relatively flexible in their design and can be worked around existing elements like windows and columns. There are certain criteria that need to be met for Building Code compliance, but these are not usually too difficult to incorporate into most structures. Sometimes exit stairs and an elevator will need to be added. Many factory buildings relied on natural daylight for the general lighting and they already have large windows. Broad open spaces were also important for manufacturing processes, so the floor plans are often straightforward to work with. Many buildings made for industrial or office uses also have good fire ratings through concrete or heavy timber construction, however, careful attention to fire separations and the use of archaic building materials is important, along with sound attenuation.
Climate change
Reusing existing buildings can drastically reduce the embodied carbon of a structure. The greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions produced from the creation of building materials have already been expended for existing buildings. A building’s structural elements tend to be the higher GHG producing materials, such as concrete and steel. If we don’t have to manufacture these in order to make use of a building, we are reducing the carbon footprint.
There are, of course, many variables to consider. Studies are continuing to be done in comparing reuse versus new to determine the embodied carbon in each circumstance so that we can understand this better, such as RDH’s New Design Resources for Embodied Carbon Targets.
Sustainability
There are also many effective methods for retrofitting existing buildings to be more energy efficient for future use. Even with heritage buildings like the B & W Feed Mill, we are able to maintain the exterior facade while achieving modern standards for building performance. We can do this through energy modeling which assesses all the elements of a building enclosure (walls, foundations, roofs, windows, doors) and shows us through various metrics how well those elements are performing. If the model shows that we aren’t meeting our goals, we can tweak the design to get there.
Some of the strategies we employ to improve energy efficiency include adding significant amounts of insulation, carefully detailing air barriers, using high performance windows and doors, and adding high efficiency mechanical systems. For the Mill, BELi (Building Enclosure Labs inc.) has completed existing masonry material testing and analysis of the proposed interior insulation option to guide the enclosure retrofit design.
Community and Culture
While the above describes many practical aspects to adaptive reuse, there are also the historical and cultural layers that are so crucial to maintaining a sense of place and a sense of belonging to a place. Existing buildings hold both the collective and personal memory of a community that used the building for various purposes through time. By retaining and restoring these buildings, we create a continuum of community history.
The cultural significance of the Mill in New Hamburg is undeniable. It serves as a direct reminder of the town’s roots in industry that relied on the power of the river, and it is a place where many people in the community worked. Physically, it anchors the main axis of the town as you approach the core. With the community uses that will be included in the building, this adaptive reuse will allow even more people to participate in creating new histories on this site.
There is also a poignant beauty in breathing new life into an old structure which aligns with LYNC’s core as a faith-based organization. God brings life out of death, and the renewal brings with it a brand new vision and hope for the future. The Mill Block Community is a beacon of hope and possibility emerging from the bricks and timbers of the past.
Danielle Gignac MArch, BAS, OAA, CPHD
Senior Architect
INVIZIJ ARCHITECTS INC.