Improvised Aesthetics: The Appropriation of Grassroots Adaptive Reuse

Adaptive reuse has become a buzzword in the architecture industry. Framed as a sustainable and economical solution to urban decay, the practice has been adopted by cities facing pressures of climate change, real estate constraints, and cultural preservation. Architects are increasingly being hired to rehabilitate the old rather than build anew. Within this discourse is a growing sentiment towards who gets to reuse and how.

Anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss famously distinguished between the engineer and the bricoleur, arguing that both forms of practice are intelligent but operate within different frameworks. Architecturally, the analogy can be applied in identifying the bricoleur as one who “collects cast-off materials and assembles them into a collage”, not a hierarchical or finished process like that of an architect, but an ongoing negotiation with limitations.

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