Building in existing fabric requires more than practical solutions and stylistic skills. The adaptive reuse of buildings, where changes in the structure go along with new programs and functions, poses the fundamental question of how the past should be included in the design for the future. On the background of long years of teaching and publishing, and using vivid imagery from Frankenstein to Rem Koolhaas and beyond, the author provides a comprehensive introduction to architectural design for adaptive reuse projects. History and theory, building typology, questions of materials and construction, aspects of preservation, urban as well as interior design are dealt with in ways that allow to approach adaptive reuse as a design practice field of its own right.

Liliane Wong's latest volume on adaptive reuse in architecture presents 50 spectacular conversion and reuse projects worldwide, including buildings such as the TWA Hotel at NewYork's John F. Kennedy Airport, the CaixaForum in Madrid, and the New Museum in Berlin. The projects are presented using a new classification system that addresses practitioners as well as academics. The author's introductory essay provides a comprehensive overview and historical context for the enormous evolution and expansion of adaptive reuse over the past 50 years.

Libraries as a building type have been subjected to substantial changes in particular in the past ten years. Milestones such as Rem Koolhaas' Seattle Central Library from 2004 reinvented the typology completely and reflected a development from elitist temple of learning to a public living room. Hybrids between library and department store or theater were conceived. Today, the ubiquity of electronic devices and media needs to be taken into account by the designer: every new library has areas without any books now. This work of reference explains systematically all technological and planning requirements of library design. Special features such as RFID, signage, acoustics or specific structural load issues are explained in texts by experts from the fields of architecture and library science. Finally, approximately 40 best-practice case studies of contemporary library design are documented extensively. They are organized in four categories - national libraries, large public libraries, small public libraries, university libraries - and comprise high-profile examples such as Jo Coenen's Openbare Bibliotheek Amsterdam, Alvaro Siza's Public Library Viana do Castelo in Portugal or Mecanoo's Library of Birmingham from 2013.

Adaptive reuse is a design practice where changes in the building structure go along with new programs and functions. Many concerns of the day that are the hallmark of current social discourse can equally be communicated through the vocabulary of design and reuse. Six common themes mirroring those of society in the new millennium are discernable in the current adaptive reuse practice: appropriation, ecology, equity, memory & redemption, identity and authenticity. Selected articles from the IntAR Interventions and Adaptive Reuse Journal of the last ten years speak to the social issues of the recent decade. The introductory essay positions shifting norms of working from home or remote learning in the light of their revision through adaptive reuse, for example the post-pandemic repercussions on office towers and the classroom.

Design interventions for the reuse of existing structures must face the question of the past and the extent to which it should be included in the design for the future. This is the point of departure of Int|AR, a yearly publication on current issues in international adaptive reuse. Can architectural interventions become actions in the sense of interventions in art or civic involvement? Which forms are conceivable in design, building and representation of architecture? Where are the boundaries to performances and similar other forms of interventions? This Int|AR volume presents essays, built or unbuilt projects and ideas that investigate undiscovered potentials in building in existing fabric.

A handbook on the design and the planning of libraries - a particularly prestigious design task that underwent significant changes in recent years. Comprehensive contributions by experts from architecture and library science analyze specific aspects of the building type; a typology of some 40 exemplary international projects provides inspiration and a range of options.