Architecture the Loser in Suburban Greyfield Retrofit

But it doesn’t have to be that way. The issue arose because of the vast commercial incentives to the reclamation of defunct and underutilized suburban properties that has drawn the interest of uninspired speculative development. Paradoxically, the economics of a favorable bottom line hasn’t appropriately been converted to better, more exceptional places as Dunham-Jones believes. Having worked on suburban retrofit projects, it oftentimes seems that the ease of plugging a new program into a big box can blind one to bad architecture.

In one instance, a failing Food Lion became the host for a new corporate office space. Unfortunately, bigger ideas such as a loading dock lounge space and a connection to a local neighborhood trail system fell to the relative ease of merely partitioning a large, preexisting vacant building. 

In another case, a Taco Bell became a new medical urgent care clinic. Opportunities for unique spaces formed by the skeleton of the pre-existing block building and changing bar joist ceiling heights were shunned because of corporate branding and continuity. 

This of course is not only an issue with retrofit projects, but it seems to be a more perilous and complex issue to navigate between client and architect when fast, cheap, and easy can all three be readily achieved and client flexibility to unique existing conditions is lacking.

Creative and successful retrofits are not non-existent however. BLDGS’s Congregation Or Hadash synagogue in suburban Atlanta is an excellent example of good architecture inhabiting an abandoned greyfield site. The synagogue finds a home in an old automobile paint shop reinvented as a holy space. In this case, client and architect shared a more creative vision, but still the final consequence of good architecture was hard fought between the involved parties as the initial budget ballooned.