169 Bailey Bestul: imaginative reuse of architectural components to create exciting and inspiring buildings

Bailey Bestul explains how imaginative reuse of architectural components can create exciting, unique and inspiring buildings. Bailey is a registered architect, researcher and author based in New York City.

His book, Reuse of Architectural Components, published by Routledge, was inspired by Bailey’s extensive research throughout Europe after he was awarded a Fulbright grant by the Netherland-America Foundation.

Bailey holds a Master of Architecture from Woodbury University, where he graduated top of his class and was awarded the AIA Medal for Academic Excellence. He has worked in design firms in Minnesota, California and New York, and has completed residential and commercial projects throughout Southern California.

His company, post-Architecture, specializes in residential and small-scale commercial projects across the United States. Bailey’s work has been featured in Dezeen, Forbes, the LA Times, Yahoo! News, DAMN Magazine and on The Design Network.

Bailey talks us through the 3 sections of the book, covering Planning Strategies, Assembly Techniques and Finishing. Each section has 3 themes for each section, with some intriguing chapter headings, such as Palliative architecture, thick architecture, and Dirty, icky, yucky architecture, and we hear a bit about each of those.

The book is full of examples, both modern and historical, many of which are from highly respected architectural practices around the world. Bailey draws on reuse practices from different cultures and contexts, too, including the Japanese art of Kintsugi.

We discuss how architects, constructors and building owners are getting on board with circularity and reuse, and what might be getting in the way of ambitious circular approaches, and ask what architects, building owners and planners can do to help raise awareness of the benefits of reuse.