The Healthy Parasite: Towards a sustainable approach to adaptive reuse projects

A number of historical buildings with heritage significance remain as marks of the past on Wellington’s urban fabric. However, many of these buildings are seismically prone and require regular structural upgrading. These buildings have the potential for further development and added value through seismic strengthening. This thesis proposes a sustainable approach to adaptive reuse by exploring three avenues of interest in the realm of green architecture. The first chapter explores the sustainability of plywood as a building material. The second chapter explores the possibility of reducing the need for structure by ‘feeding off’ an existing building’s structure and services through parasitic design concepts. Chapter three explores the integration of biophilic design principles into the building. The final design is a combination of these three areas of research and demonstrates a possible approach to sustainable adaptive reuse projects in New Zealand.