Practice
Reuse Starts with Structure
A pretty program will not save a building that cannot carry the new load. Structure first, then the narrative.
Sofia Nara/May 2026/5 min read
Clients often arrive with a mood board and a tenant already in mind. I start with the structure. Bay spacing, floor-to-floor, lateral system, and what the soil will still hold. Adaptive reuse is not a style exercise. It is a negotiation between what the building can do and what the city will allow it to become.
Keep the scar
The best projects keep a readable scar of the prior use: a crane rail, a loading dock edge, a classroom chalk line under new paint. Erase everything and you have a new building with worse bones. Keep too much and you have a museum. The craft is the middle path.