Adaptive Conservation Of Building

“A country without a past has the emptiness of a barren continent; and a city without old buildings is like a man without a memory.”

Graeme Shankland,

A British planner

This quote conveys a clear message that it is important for a country to protect its heritage and cultural image through conservation of old buildings. The definition of “conservation of building” is the preservation of building from loss, depletion, waste or harm (Martin E. Weaver, F. G. Matero, 1993). The building conservation issues of good conservation practice raised in middle of 19th century which leads to the publication of the first conservation guidance by the Royal Institution of Architect (RIBA) in 1865. Therefore, the building conservation practice has gone through

The term of adaptive reuse is also similar with “refurbishment”, ‘rehabilitation”, “conversion” etc. It is a common conservation concept, a strategy to change the utilization of structure of old building. In order to change the building’s capacity, function or performance, adaptive reuse includes any work to a building over and above maintenance of a building to suit new environment and necessities (James Douglas, 2006).. In the book “Restoring Old Building for Contemporary Uses” , William C. Shopsin (1986) emphasized that term adaptive use can be interpreted as providing a new function in an old building or, if a district is involved, many buildings. Hence, essential interior or exterior renovation and refurbishment are usually necessary in this condition and generated a new life for old building to fit into this modern era of globalisation.

The adaptive reuse of building are crucial as the building function may change over time and this encourage the old buildings to open into new contemporary usage. Mine Tanac Zeren (2015) annotated in his study that adaptive reuse of old building reduce urban sprawl and environment impacts while in the same time protecting the memories of society and the building’s historical values. In addition, the old building qualities such as façade, spatial organization etc. are impossible to replicate which make them the ideal site for adaptive

The objective of the paper are to study the methodology of adaptive reuse in colonial shophouses along Jalan Sultan. Few sample such as Amo café and Grocers’ Inn will be studied from their finishes, facade, colour, roof, five foot way, air well and even safety measure of building to understand the application of adaptive reuse. The impact of adaptive reuse to the building and surrounding will also be identify and justify from the aspect of social-culture. Thus, the on-site study through observation, interview and survey is very important for the data collection.

Adaptive reuse is a strategy to give a new breeze to old building. With the aid of suitable methodology, the building can retain its original characteristics while provide new use which fit to the current context and contribute benefits to the socio-culture of the locals. As the saying said “Rome wasn 't built in a day.”, therefore the commitment from all parties are crucially essential to ensure the conservation of historical