Roane School, Lynchburg, Va., now contains 26 housing units. Small-building conversions often don’t make financial sense, so Noyes consolidated the project with a renovation at Lynchburg High School (see page 46) to create the Virginia Housing Development Authority’s first adaptive reuse project.
development that made financial sense. The two schools, done as a single package, turned out to be the first adaptive reuse project completed by the Virginia Housing Develop- ment Authority.
r:
What are some of the lessons you’ve learned
from your years of retrofitting school buildings into residen- tial spaces?
Noyes: A major one is it’s cheaper to reuse existing materials and architectural features than to replace them. We completed Central Grammar 40 years ago and installed alumi- num replacement windows without mul- lions because that was what was available in the market at the time. There were three continual problems with those windows:
1. They had insulated glass, which, when you’re as close to the ocean as we are, has a lifespan of about five years. The salt air corrodes the aluminum spacer bar between the glass and the glass be- gins to fog up.
Circle No. 19 January-February 2013 // RETROFIT 45