Short abstract:

Architectural interventions to retrofit heritage buildings are now being prioritised as a means of retaining carbon sequestration and revitalising urban centres. We map the entanglements of ecological and local concerns that are shaping the future of smaller urban centres.

Long abstract:

The challenges of transitioning to carbon neutrality and climate resilience, tied to concerns about globalisation and mass standardisation, have led to greater interest in reusing buildings and their materials. This is particularly relevant for Ireland with its high rate of vacancy and dereliction in non-metropolitan towns and villages. When working with heritage structures such as 18th and 19th century terraced buildings, this implies rethinking how design can repurpose for contemporary use older structures that have been steadily modified over time in response to economic shifts, novel functionalities, and divergent aesthetic considerations. The ‘thingly’ nature of buildings is apparent when considering the adaptive reuse of these heritage buildings, including their meandering plots and outbuildings, with a panoply of local communities, material supplies, specialist trades, architects and planners, heritage authorities, and shifting financial incentives from national government.

This paper reports on architectural research covering the costs and barriers to adaptive reuse of buildings by including Whole Life Carbon analysis, while also connecting to strategic initiatives to reinvigorate rural villages and towns. It therefore extends the discussion on end-of-life and upcycling in life-cycle analysis to expand into wholesale reuse of existing buildings. We map these entanglements between standardised frameworks for low carbon development with case studies on town heritage buildings in Ireland that were originally constructed with local materials and craftmanship, tracing how these structures are becoming repurposed through renewed interest in smaller urban places and their heritage as a means of responding at a local scale to geo-ecological crises.