Can flexible design future-proof our infrastructure?

When con­struc­tion began in 2010 on the Opus – the futur­is­tic tow­er in Dubai designed by Zaha Hadid – the plan was for it to house offices. But at quite a late stage in the project, the developer’s vision changed to reflect what it saw as a peri­od of change in the emi­rate and instead adopt­ed a mixed-use pro­pos­al, encom­pass­ing office space, res­i­den­tial apart­ments, retail spaces, restau­rants and even a five-star hotel. 

Chang­ing tack was not with­out its chal­lenges. But the result was a build­ing far bet­ter equipped for the future. BSBG Group, the exec­u­tive archi­tect tasked with real­is­ing Hadid’s vision, wrote in a recent blog that such mixed-use projects “have a far greater chance of stand­ing the test of time” because they are set up for mul­ti­ple func­tions from the out­set.

“The suc­cess of archi­tec­ture has to be con­nect­ed direct­ly to the degree of flex­i­bil­i­ty it presents in its use,” wrote the design firm. “Archi­tec­ture that doesn’t respond well to change runs the risk of stag­na­tion.” 

So-called flex­i­ble design is now a key com­po­nent of mod­ern infra­struc­ture, with pro­po­nents argu­ing it allows build­ings to be longer-last­ing, bet­ter val­ue for mon­ey and more sus­tain­able. From hos­pi­tals to the­atres, hous­ing to offices, infra­struc­ture is designed with adapt­abil­i­ty in mind and Covid and the cli­mate cri­sis have added fresh impe­tus to the trend. 

Robert Kro­nen­burg, emer­i­tus Roscoe pro­fes­sor of archi­tec­ture at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Liv­er­pool, has been research­ing the top­ic for 30 years. He says that, despite grow­ing recog­ni­tion of the trend, it’s not a new one. 

“There’s no time in his­to­ry when adapt­abil­i­ty and flex­i­bil­i­ty haven’t been an issue in archi­tec­ture. It’s just that some build­ings have respond­ed to it bet­ter.”

Creating multi-use spaces

Flex­i­bil­i­ty is not just about the form of a build­ing, Kro­nen­burg says, it’s also about how it is made, the mate­ri­als used, what the envi­ron­ment is like inside and how respon­sive it is to people’s needs. It also takes a “huge amount” of work and plan­ning, as devel­op­ers are, to some extent, deal­ing with the unknown. “You can’t pre­dict the future, but you can make allowances,” he says. 

The Dutch archi­tect Franz Van Der Werf has been pio­neer­ing his prin­ci­ples of open build­ing since the mid-1970s. One of his best-known projects is the Pel­gromhof – a hous­ing com­plex in the Nether­lands for old­er peo­ple. Its 215 apart­ments are eas­i­ly adapt­able as res­i­dents age so that they don’t have to move into new accom­mo­da­tion because of health or mobil­i­ty issues. Van Der Werf even went as far as call­ing them “life­time guar­an­teed”.

“You can move walls around eas­i­ly to make the place more acces­si­ble,” says Kro­nen­burg of the scheme. “Or there might be a space you can use for a cup­board but in the future turn it into a lift so you can get up to the next floor more eas­i­ly. It doesn’t look like any­thing spe­cial or dif­fer­ent on the out­side, it’s about sub­tle hints in the design.”

Examples of fexible infrastructure

Famous pub­lic build­ings such as the Cen­tre Pom­pi­dou in Paris and Japan’s Sendai Mediatheque library were designed with flex­i­bil­i­ty in mind and have suc­cess­ful­ly served as mul­ti-use event spaces for decades. Fur­ther back in the late Vic­to­ri­an era, archi­tect Frank Matcham pio­neered the con­cept of flex­i­ble stag­ing and scenery when he designed and refur­bished some of Britain’s most famous the­atres, cre­at­ing venues that could be eas­i­ly adapt­ed for dif­fer­ent pro­duc­tions. 

A major dri­ver for flex­i­ble design today is the need to cre­ate human-cen­tred spaces that reflect the chang­ing way we live, says Michael Lewis, group design direc­tor at BSBG Group. Not only has Covid dri­ven many of us from office-based envi­ron­ments into remote- or hybrid-work­ing pat­terns, but men­tal and phys­i­cal well­be­ing are also high­er pri­or­i­ties.

“Qual­i­ty of life has been a crit­i­cal fac­tor in dri­ving a move­ment in flex­i­ble envi­ron­ments, both in a phys­i­cal sense at home and in the work­place, where the psy­chol­o­gy of flex­i­ble work­ing has pos­i­tive­ly impact­ed employ­ees and employ­ers,” he says. 

In office design it has meant reduc­ing the size of board­rooms and cre­at­ing more space for hot-desk­ing and social inter­ac­tion, Lewis adds. In homes, mean­while, activ­i­ty spaces and work­spaces “are becom­ing cru­cial”. 

Peter Brick­ell is engi­neer­ing direc­tor, head of inno­va­tion at WSP in the UK, an engi­neer­ing pro­fes­sion­al ser­vices con­sul­tan­cy that has helped clients to build flex­i­bly. He says the tra­di­tion­al view of flex­i­bil­i­ty was how well a build­ing could accept dif­fer­ent ten­ants and how quick­ly space could be let. But this is chang­ing as devel­op­ers focus on sus­tain­abil­i­ty – some­thing that will be a “dri­ving fac­tor in the design of build­ings for the fore­see­able future”.

An eco-friendly way to build

Unlike some stan­dard designs, it is unlike­ly that a build­ing designed flex­i­bly will have to be demol­ished and rebuilt to change its use. That makes it less car­bon-inten­sive and waste-gen­er­a­tive in the long run. “There is much more inter­est in the cir­cu­lar econ­o­my of a build­ing and the flex­i­bil­i­ty of build­ings to change at a more fun­da­men­tal lev­el, extend­ing the life­time of the invest­ment,” Brick­ell says. “Can an office change to res­i­den­tial or anoth­er com­mer­cial use in future? Can the mate­ri­als be decon­struct­ed and reused?”

Design­ing flex­i­bly comes with chal­lenges and is not always viable. It typ­i­cal­ly takes longer, costs more, and can butt up against space or loca­tion con­straints. There are also no leg­isla­tive require­ments to build flex­i­bly as there are to build sus­tain­ably, leav­ing it up to the client and devel­op­er to take the lead. Lewis believes that most archi­tects try to “do the right thing” but devel­op­ers’ inter­ests can get in the way. 

“The real ques­tion is, can you cre­ate a main­stream move­ment for future-proof­ing? Will devel­op­ers pay for future-proof­ing in the long term, or are the finan­cial pres­sures of ROI and capex the dri­vers in the main­stream design indus­try?” 

Brick­ell acknowl­edges the chal­lenges of flex­i­ble design but says the effort is worth it giv­en the immense ben­e­fits. “The con­struc­tion process always has lim­its but the key is to keep inno­vat­ing,” he says. “Design­ers and devel­op­ers need to keep push­ing the art of the pos­si­ble and assess the risks on a build­ing-by-build­ing basis. What is a gam­ble on one project might not be on the next in a few years.”