Seven Recycled Architecture Public Places (PHOTOS)

Tearing down old structures to build new green designs in their place often consumes many more resources than simply working with existing architecture. The most sustainable construction comes from taking existing establishments and turning them into new useful assets for the community.

Here are seven awesome projects that have upcycled old and neglected architecture into new public places:

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Tropical Islands Resort

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Tropical Islands, opened in 2004, is an artifical tropical resort in Germany with the world's largest indoor waterpark, built inside of a 351-foot tall disused airship hangar. The hangar is one of the largest buildings by volume, and is the world's largest single hall to not have any support pillars.

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Tropical Islands, opened in 2004, is an artifical tropical resort in Germany with the world's largest indoor waterpark, built inside of a 351-foot tall disused airship hangar. The hangar is one of the largest buildings by volume, and is the world's largest single hall to not have any support pillars.

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Comments

[Balzac]

02:03 PM on 06/22/2010

That water park in Germany looks awesome.

[LMPE]

12:50 AM on 06/22/2010

perfect

[Exfl]

11:45 PM on 06/21/2010

The Orsay Museum in Paris (one of the best art museums in the world) is in a historic train station that was built in 1900 and abandoned as such win 1939 as its platforms no longer suited newer rail cars.

[GSR]

04:27 AM on 06/22/2010

It was the first thing that entered my mind when I read the header, but wouldn't you know,
no Musée d'Orsay.
What can I say?
Eh!

[theexitistotheleft]

11:40 PM on 06/21/2010

how can Oriole Park at Camden Yards not be included in this list

[VoteObama2012]

08:57 PM on 06/21/2010

100+ Abandoned Buildings, Places and Property

http://weburbanist.com/abandoned-buildings-towns-and-cities/

[joefoss]

03:34 PM on 06/21/2010

#9
Large parts of the city of Detroit, abandoned by residents and littered with empty, derelict buildings, will be turned to "agricultural" uses, according to today's New York Times.
=Why doesn't this "green" news make me feel good?

[HisPetGoat]

03:31 PM on 06/21/2010

It often puzzles me how city councils will allow the destruction of an historic building to make way for a new building project. The usual excuse is that renovation is too expensive but new construction creates jobs. It seems that if renovation is more expensive it is must be because it creates even more jobs than new construction. I live in New Orleans. Three examples that come to mind are the destruction of the internationally acclaimed Rivergate convention center to build the ridiculous casino which the existing building could have accommodated. Recently, massively built public housing was demolished despite much protest and controversy. Presently, the art deco Charity hospital is to be demolished along with an old residential neighborhood to build a new medical complex. I favor renovation.

[DoesItMatter]

02:08 PM on 06/21/2010

There is hope.......

[Suntio]

02:01 PM on 06/21/2010

I like the fact that this focused on US places, now get to work and show us some international sites too, HP!

[MCJanes]

03:21 PM on 06/21/2010

3/7 of the examples were from outside the U.S.

[Suntio]

04:32 PM on 06/21/2010

Oops! I kept on expecting to see the old Atocha train station in Madrid but it didn't make it. Still beautiful in my book, though.

[julieintx]

01:58 PM on 06/21/2010

Those are neat, but there are many examples of this sort of thing everywhere. The art museum in my South Texas city is an old brewery, and we've converted another brewery nearby to mixed use residential, entertainment, and office. It has the large solar array for power and a rainwater harvesting system, and a farmer's market. The old Southern Pacific station is converted to a beautiful place to socialize too, but you can still catch the Amtrak there.

Whoever below said that this sort of thing is only done in blue states is ignorant.

[bmora]

04:10 PM on 06/21/2010

Must be from San Antonio, neighbor.

[ElectronoftheOne]

01:25 PM on 06/21/2010

No discussion of recycled architecture public spaces would be complete without mention of the Walkway over the Hudson, a new NY State Park made from an old railroad bridge connecting Poughkeepsie and Highland, NY.
http://walkway.org/

[Colleen Miller]

01:19 PM on 06/21/2010

St. Louis City Museum should be here, too.

[Danilo-11]

01:31 PM on 06/21/2010

Completely agree, it's better than most of the ones shown here. It was a shoe factory and it's a kids museum completely built from recycled materials.

[colred]

01:52 PM on 06/21/2010

Absolutely agree. The most amazing space I've ever been to. Plan to go back soon.

[Maureen Entera]

04:48 PM on 06/21/2010

City Museum is really fun and inspiring. However, I gotta say the Orsay in Paris blows the socks off of any other use of an abandoned train station.

[nolabels]

01:15 PM on 06/21/2010

Pictures of the Manhattan park keep popping up on my facebook feed but I didn't realize it was repurposed train tracks. Now I definitely will check it out.

[breathestolive]

08:57 PM on 06/21/2010

Didn't they use that very spot in the last Spiderman movie, when he was stopping the train? Sure looks like it.

[nolabels]

10:02 PM on 06/21/2010

Not sure. I slept through that movie. It was atrocious.

[Tommygun264]

11:17 PM on 06/21/2010

I thought he stopped the train in Spiderman 2, the one with Dr. Octopus, not 3. In 3 he was fighting his evil self, his best friend as the Goblin, the guy from "That 70's Show" with the evil black goo that turned him into Venom and the guy from "Wings" and "Sideways" who was made of sand.

[ProCynic]

01:14 PM on 06/21/2010

In his story "Cloak of Anarchy", Larry Niven set his "Free Parks" on the old LA freeway system. In the future with air cars, the freeways were no longer needed so the wide ribbons of road were replaced with long stretches of greenbelt, with on-ramps being the access to the parks.

I can't wait. The antidote to "they paved paradise".

[SuperRyan]

01:02 PM on 06/21/2010

Vice Mag did an awesome article on Tropical Islands Resort.
http://vice.typepad.com/vice_magazine/2009/07/a-day-in-the-life-of-europes-biggest-subsidized-theme-park.html
Might not be the place to take the family, but if you're a young adult, with a sense of adventure, it might just be the best vacation on Earth.