Reclaiming the Past: Adaptive Reuse of Buildings with Dark Histories into Community Spaces

Sofia LaPorte // Advisor:  Kim Montes

Reclaiming the Past: Adaptive Reuse of Buildings with Dark Histories into Community Spaces

Cities are filled with buildings that carry dark histories: places shaped by conflict, exclusion, neglect, or other forms of social harm. These structures are often abandoned or demolished, generating waste and erasing the material traces that hold collective memory. This thesis explores how adaptive reuse can transform a building with a dark past into a community center; a place where community and creativity can help reinterpret the meanings embedded in the existing architecture. It examines how design can work with its remaining traces: materials, marks, atmospheres, and spatial conditions to shape new forms of public use. It explores how memory can remain visible but not dominant, creating a balance where the building’s past coexists with new opportunities for gathering, making, and living through shared experiences to rebuild the sense of community that was lost in history.