Adaptive reuse, or the art and science of repurposing buildings, is Richard Olcott’s mission. 

The New York-based design partner at Ennead Architects advocates for radical reuse, or the process of funneling creativity into sustainable architectural projects to reinvigorate buildings and give them a new identity and purpose. His work over the past four decades has run the gamut from residential, including the Lane at Boerum Place in Brooklyn, to civic and everything in between.

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Recent projects include Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg Center in Washington, D.C., and City Harvest’s Cohen Community Food Rescue Center in Brooklyn’s Sunset Park neighborhood. Olcott ushered in new identities and purposes for these buildings with an eye on sustainability and context.

Mansion Global sat down with Olcott to learn more about his creative process, his views on sustainability, preservation and more.

Mansion Global: What’s your design philosophy, and does it change depending on where your projects are?

Richard Olcott: Absolutely. We’ve always been interested in context and how to use it to your advantage. It’s always been a hallmark of this firm. We’ve probably done as much work adding to historic or significant buildings in all kinds of ways as we have new buildings on open sites. We work a great deal in cities, so you don’t find too many open sites with nothing around them. That has always been a focus of this firm and an interest of mine. I spent 11 years on the landmarks commission in New York City. I thought about how you can add to the city, how you can adapt new architecture to historic districts and how you can preserve and enhance all these beautiful, historic buildings we have here. 

In adaptive reuse, what are the biggest opportunities for architects?

It’s finally about time that people realize all the potential there is in adaptive reuse. I like to go a bit farther and call it radical reuse. I wish people would think outside the box more about creative ways of reusing buildings, especially nowadays when we have so many empty buildings. I had a client at a university who once said we don’t need any new buildings, we need to use the ones we have in a better way. I think there’s something to that. There are all kinds of creativity possibilities that one can think of in how you add to a building rather than destroying it or cleaning it up. That’s adaptive reuse. What I’m thinking of is possibly interventionist. 

Your firm built the Newseum in Washington, D.C., and recently transformed it into the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg Center. Would that be considered interventionist?

It’s a pretty serious intervention in what was a museum building and is now an academic building. It’s a completely different facade and a completely different interior. Expression-wise, function-wise, and material-wise, it’s a different building.

What were the biggest challenges in that project?

Some of the structural work that was done. We completely removed the elevator core and built a new one. We moved a lot of floors. We removed some floors and put in new ones. There was a whole lot of structural gymnastics that went on that had to happen all the while making sure the building doesn’t fall down, which is no joke when you’re taking down major structural components. There are also 150 apartments on the back of the building that remained untouched. You’re working on a living, breathing building full of people. It’s a very difficult operation like brain surgery. 

What are you most proud of with that project?

We were charged with making the exterior a better neighbor. That is something that in federal Washington, you have to go through numerous different agencies to get approval: Commission of Fine Arts, the National Capital Planning Commission, the National Park Service, etcetera, all requiring approval of the design. It’s a distinguished context, surrounded by landmarked buildings of all kinds: the Canadian Embassy, the National Gallery of Art, and the Capitol right down the street. 

How did you improve on the design that was there before to improve the block and the neighborhood?

Primarily, that building was glass because of its expression as a museum of the First Amendment and freedom of the press and modernity. But you don’t see a lot of glass buildings on Pennsylvania Avenue. There was a general feeling, particularly from the Commission of Fine Arts, that if we were going to change it, they would like to see the building become more contextual. The primary way we achieved that was by using Tennessee marble for a large portion of the front facade. This is the same stone used on the National Gallery of Art and the NGA East Building, from the same quarry. Automatically, it fits because there are two buildings made from the same materials. 

What projects are on your horizon?

I’m currently working on a series of U.S. Embassy projects. We’ve done a series of them over the years. The next two are in Nairobi and Kazakhstan. 

Looking ahead, what trends are you tracking?

The trend is adaptive reuse. For the first time, everyone is realizing that the most sustainable building is the one that you already have. It’s become ever more important to address these issues of climate change. That is something that’s really changed in the last several years that people are acutely aware of. Thinking about adaptive reuse is much more important than it ever used to be. 

What’s the most luxurious room in your home?

I don’t think there are any luxurious rooms in my home! No, I would have to say we have a house in Connecticut that we visit on weekends and whenever we can. It’s an 1850s farmhouse. We have been renovating it room by room for the last several years. Our favorite room is the bedroom and that’s because we purchased this wonderful, handmade Vermont four-poster canopy bed. It’s very modern and super minimal. In other words, it’s not an antique but made of solid cherry wood and paired with a fantastic mattress. It’s the most comfortable place you can imagine. You can find either my wife or me heading straight there when we get to the house. 

Why’d you decide to buy a house of that age when renovation can be such an undertaking?

It belonged to my wife’s parents, who bought it in 1971. It has a hand-hewn, chestnut beam structural frame and huge, wide floorboards, and the studs in the walls are actually trees that have been shaved to be flat. It’s amazing to see how they made buildings 200 years ago. 

What is your personal definition of luxury?

I would have to say a place that allows a sense of home and centeredness. What it’s like to be in that bedroom, that to me, is luxury. It’s some place where you can enjoy beauty and light. 

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.