U-Haul company’s commitment to renovate and reuse abandoned buildings is not only economical, it also serves to revitalize post-industrial neighborhoods.

One of U-Haul’s most noteworthy adaptive reuse projects is the former Magic Chef head office building in south St. Louis, Missouri. Built in 1947-48 and designed by architect Harris Armstrong, the building’s lobby featured a beautiful sculptured ceiling created by legendary Japanese-American artist Isamu Noguchi.

Magic Chef sold its St. Louis buildings and factories in the late 1950s and the head office building at 1641 South Kingshighway sat abandoned for about a decade before U-Haul bought it in 1977.

A practical renovation in the early 1990s saw a drop ceiling installed beneath Noguchi’s sculptural ceiling but thanks to U-Haul’s current focus on adaptive reuse and respectful regional marketing, both the building and its unique mid-century lobby ceiling are undergoing a well-deserved renaissance.

Shop The Pig

U-Haul’s corporate sustainability initiatives pay off for both the company and the community in a number of ways including lightening the local carbon footprint, reducing consumption of energy and resources on new construction, and helping cities and towns reduce their inventories of unwanted buildings. Saving historic architecture isn’t always a priority, however. This former Fox Brother’s Piggly Wiggly supermarket in Saukville, Wisconsin is a prime example. The defunct grocery store was converted into the U-Haul Moving & Storage of Port Washington full-service moving and self-storage facility over the summer of 2016.

For St. Pete’s Sake

U-Haul doesn’t have to expend the expense required to beautify their adaptively reused buildings but aren’t you glad they do? Take the U-Haul depot above, located in downtown St. Petersburg, Florida. Formerly a drab, dreary, abandoned rail-connected cold storage building, the structure now boasts a gigantic mural of Tampa Bay wetlands fauna and flora on one side highlighted by an artistically rendered Roseate Spoonbill. Flickr user Mark Evans (st_asaph) captured this uplifting urban scene on February 27th of 2017.

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Haul For One U Haul Adapts Reuses Abandoned Buildings

Featuring over 300,000 custom-designed bricks, the latest work of one of the world’s most famous architects is an impressive feat of engineering, but hard not to compare to a crumpled grocery bag. Even Australia’s governor general Peter Cosgrove introduced it as “the most beautiful squashed brown paper bag I’ve ever seen” at its opening ceremony. Gehry himself reportedly does not mind the comparison, but there is not much he could do or say about it even if he did.

Gehry’s first work in Australia, the structure’s inspiration supposedly came from a combination of local sources (Sydney architecture) and a treehouse, with branching supports holdings organic shapes. Its fenestration is designed to reflect views of the surrounding neighborhood – this, at least, is an intriguing idea that has a demonstrable and interactive effect.

While Gehry states that this building will not be replicated elsewhere, it is quite recognizable as his work, and thus raises the question: is it sufficiently different from his other amorphous and sculptural buildings to be deemed truly unique in the first place? The resemblance to one half of The Dancing House (aka Fred and Ginger), a nickname given to the Nationale-Nederlanden building in Prague (shown above), is hard to miss.

The complex and chaotic-seeming shapes percolate into the interior as well, showing via details and spatial configurations in the main atrium space, multiple lecture halls and multimedia rooms and a student center above. Ugly or lovely, a grand metallic entry staircase is also reminiscent of other Gehry projects.

Ultimately, only time seems to tell whether an unusual building can become an icon, but one has to wonder whether something can become iconic if it is not sufficiently different from other work by the same creator. Perhaps one of his few works to still stand out (and stand the test of time) remains his original Santa Monica house remodel – a reconfiguration that shows a learning process that has arguably since stagnated. There is no doubting his influential roll in contemporary deconstructivist architecture, but he has had failures and rejections as well and his projects increasingly look like muddled remixes of one another.

A massive mixed use project in Rotterdam by MVRDV, this newly-opened building wraps vertically around an open central space but also features one of the largest works of art in the Netherlands: an incredible digital display spanning over 100,000 square feet of the interior surface area.

The closed-but-open solution is a response to new Dutch legislation requiring produce markets to be enclosed, balanced with a desire to keep an open-air feeling to the space.  The resulting design with its vibrantly-colored displays makes the place seem inviting from the outside, drawing people in to visit the nearly 100 shopping stalls within. The complex is expected to have over 5 million annual visitors.

Glazed on two sides with transparent glass, apartments wraps the others sides and top of the structure, giving over 200 residents views down into the market below as well as balconies toward the outside world on the exterior skin of the structure. The suspended glass panels are held in tension by thin wires, making the supports as invisible as possible while providing protection against strong winter winds.

From the firm’s press release: “The large mural which covers the vaulted interior, ‘Cornucopia’ by artists Arno Coenen and Iris Roskam has a total surface of 11.000 m² and shows oversized images of market produce which can be bought at the market, as well as flowers and insects referencing the work of Dutch still life masters from the 17th century. In order to achieve the required sharpness, the image was rendered by Pixar software. It was printed onto perforated aluminium panels, then attached to acoustic panels for noise control. The print resolution of the art work is comparable to a glossy magazine.”

More about the layout: “Markthal comprises 96 fresh food stalls and shop units, ranging from Rotterdam based businesses and market vendors to established local heroes. They will offer a diverse range of products: from fresh fish to game, from cappuccino to cheese, from Chinese to Dutch, from ice cream to local produce, from bargains to exclusive slow food. The ground and first floor accommodate 20 retail units, restaurants and cafés. All shops are food-related and include a crockery- and a wine shop. A supermarket is located on the 1st underground level allowing the shoppers to complete their shopping under one roof.”

The strange ongoing controversy around RePack has reached a conclusion, with Royal College of Art determining that the accused student is technically guilty of plagiarism and misconduct. While the subject is arguably a revolutionary innovation for the future of sustainable retail, RePack turned out to be repackaged (pardon the wordplay) copy of an existing brand’s idea, in all but name, which remained the same.

RePack (as shown in the two images above) is a reusable packaging startup based in Finland, boasting a “sustainable system for online retailers and shoppers whereby delivery packages can be conveniently and easily returned, and then re-used.”

Meanwhile, design student Yu-Chang Chou developed a thesis project (pictures above and below) with not only the same name and concept but even some of the same descriptive text, which came to the attention of the RCA after its publication on Dezeen.

Similar to its Finnish counterpart, “The customer would opt for for the packaging when they make their purchase. Once they receive the product, they simply fold and reseal the Repack bag and post it back to a central address, in exchange for a refund of the deposit they paid when ordering.”

The oddest part of the whole affair is the school’s declaration that the plagiarism was inadvertent, which seems a stretch in this situation. One could imagine that a brand name and concept could be accidentally duplicated, but additional text suggests that the student must have had some knowledge of the original project. Regardless, the institution has reached its conclusion and removed the project from their website, declaring the investigation at an end – the student, meanwhile, has already graduated.

The Finnish RePack seems to have reluctantly accepted the situation, and affirms that, regardless of the specifics of this case, they are glad that students are exploring sustainable packaging designs along similar (if not exactly the same) lines. Either way, wherever one weighs in on the plagiarism part, these ideas could give rise to a renewed usefulness of post boxes turned into de facto recycling centers, and may allow packages to be reused up to hundreds of times without having to be discarded. And, in the end, ideas get recycled a lot – perhaps it is the execution that matters.

This year alone we have learned that a Frank Lloyd Wright house must be moved 1,000 miles to protect it from floodwater, a Le Corbusier chapel has been vandalized and a seminal structure by Micheal Graves may be razed. In a remarkable turnaround, the MoMA has also recently decided to save the entire facade of the American Folk Art Museum, but by dismantling and storing it indefinitely. There is nothing like the threat of utter annihilation to make one wonder: how do we choose what building we preserve, restore and ultimately save? Here are five hot-button buildings generating serious buzz, raising questions both within and beyond the architectural design community.

Frank Lloyd Wright House to be Moved & Reconstructed

First to Frank Lloyd Wright, whose work invariably makes headlines whenever it is at risk of destruction. Thanks to the intervention of the Crystal Bridges Museum (images by Tarantino Studio) in Arkansas, the Bachman Wilson House will be transported from its original location in New Jersey to a site on their campus.

Its owners, Lawrence and Sharon Tarantino, put it on the market hoping for just such a buyer and after spending years restoring the home themselves. This remarkable move will save the structure itself by carefully deconstructing it, transporting its parts then rebuilding piece by piece in a new place.

However, the process  is inevitably partial  and one has to wonder: how will relocating it change the nature of a home designed around a specific site many states away? Is regional architecture truly as portable as this solution implies, and what does it lose forever when taken out of its context?

Le Corbusier Chapel Broken Into, Robbed & Vandalized

An unusual work by one of the world’s most famous architects, the Chapel of Ronchamp by Le Corbusier was reported vandalized earlier. Amid other damage and theft, the destruction of stained glass window drawn (and reportedly signed) by Corbu himself was deemed a “priceless” loss, the colored glazing irreparable.

The building is a destination for tens of thousands of annual tourists. Its sculptural form reflects the architect’s philosophy that while Modernism may be appropriate for most architecture, spiritual structures are an exception.

The shocking break-in leaves open questions: how does one replace an irreplaceable window – with a copy of the original, something commemorating its loss or a new work entirely? And how does one protect against future defacement, particularly in a structure so often open to the public?

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5 Preservation Puzzles Famous Architecture Facing Threats