Recently, urban redevelopment projects have increasingly drawn on nostalgia for a city's fabric—its history, evolution and the totems that marked its past. Instead of submitting to a tabula rasa model for improving and adding to a neighbourhood's facilities, a growing interest in heritage in an era marked by rapid and inevitable transformation has led to the desire to preserve markers of a shared past. This palimpsestic view, presenting a city's histories layered on top of each other, is further emblematic of a turn towards adaptive reuse as a more sustainable, carbon and resource-light method for construction. It's interesting to observe to what degree nostalgia plays a role in redevelopment, particularly when it comes to what is preserved (and retrofitted) and what is demolished. The decisions of what buildings are preserved and how they are restored or reused are hinged on what histories are given precedence, and what goals refurbishment is oriented towards.

In this context, the urban redevelopment of Neuhoff District, an upcoming area in Nashville by New York-based studio S9 Architecture, aims to create a vibrant micro-neighbourhood through a mixed-use development scheme. The urban design project spans approximately 1.3 million square feet, incorporating offices, residential buildings, a hotel and retail spaces. A former slaughterhouse—abandoned for almost five decades before being refurbished for the scheme—forms the distinctive architectural totem around which the development is centred. While S9 Architecture was responsible for the masterplanning, Smith Gee Studio served as the Adaptive Reuse Architect of Record. Speaking about the decision to intervene in the area situated on the banks of a river, the design team at S9 underscores the district's "untapped potential". Neuhoff is located within Germantown, which was founded in the 1850s by European immigrants and considered to be Nashville's first suburb. Of late, the area has seen a surge of interest because of how the area was planned, defined by tree-lined streets and a historic architectural fabric. The American architects aim to enhance these characteristics within their scheme.

Elaborating on the site's history, which became a major conceptual anchor for the project, the architects state, "The Neuhoff District’s original brick buildings on the Cumberland River evolved alongside Nashville. The former Neuhoff Packing Company (est. 1905) brought cattle, people and jobs to the riverfront and became a Nashville landmark." In the decades after the meatpacking plant was shut down in 1977, local artists and musicians made it their home. Neuhoff was where the Nashville Jazz Workshop, Nashville Cultural Arts Project and multiple recording and photography groups were located, according to an official release. The site’s cultural significance, alongside its unique architectural character and past, and most importantly, its vicinity to the riverbank, make the location "prime real estate" according to the architects. The scheme was spearheaded by New City Properties, a real estate development company based in Georgia, United States.

While there is a lot to be said about the nature of commercially driven redevelopment exercises that often attempt to commodify the past and cultural meanings attached to a place to attract investment, S9 Architecture goes a step further. The design ethos for the project stemmed from a desire to create an inclusive scheme that encourages exploration, with lively public spaces, pedestrian-friendly streets and different functions such as retail and entertainment. "For some, it is hard to reconcile the site’s past as a slaughterhouse and centre of industrial Nashville with a nature-centric vision forward. But thanks to the tenacity of those who wanted better for the city, the planet and the river, that’s exactly what Neuhoff District is becoming," the architects shared about the project that takes into account various sustainable design stipulations, earning different buildings within the larger plan a LEED certification.

For their 'nature-centric' design, the team not only conceived new structures and retrofitted existing buildings, but they also detailed the interior design for the public buildings. Overall, the first phase of the project incorporates two office blocks plus retail blocks, one of which is newly constructed and apartment buildings. ‘The Curve’, the plan’s anchor, repurposes the meat-packing plant’s facade for its design. What’s worth noting here is the nature of the retrofit and extent of adaptive reuse, which point to a shift within architecture and architectural media circles. In an age of resource scarcity, conversations on building moratoriums, cutting carbon costs, sustainable design and circularity have led more practices to consider the values of reuse, restoration and preservation and for media to extoll such schemes.

It is no coincidence here that the very aspects of the project that point to a larger, more comprehensive history of the region and its significance to the city are so meticulously engineered. While The Curve’s facade acts as a billboard pointing to its history, the preservation of the former industrial building’s columns in the lobby of a new office block also points to the idea of continuity to a 'forgotten' past. The aesthetics, if you will, of adaptive reuse are apparent in the unfinished, almost brutalist design language adopted for the retrofit. Images that position the very contemporary glass facades of the newly planned office blocks juxtaposed with the textured brick of the meat-packing plant further enhance the idea of history and modernity co-existing. As the architects state, "The factory-complex heritage of the site inspires Neuhoff’s design. Much of Neuhoff’s furniture is built from salvaged materials from the site. To leave the columns and other elements, the demolition crew worked meticulously, removing bits of concrete, like a sculpture, rather than smashing it all and moving on."

Apart from the adaptive reuse architecture that characterises ‘The Curve’, the design further uses salvaged bricks, stone and original columns from the buildings in its construction. Additionally, as a continuation of the site's history, an industrial village is also planned. Combining public spaces with commercial endeavours, the design for Neuhoff district by S9 Architecture points to the careful articulation and upholding of a city's past. While it leans aesthetically on the markers of a shared history, it also aims to ameliorate a feeling of togetherness through inclusive, sustainable and community-oriented schemes.