Adaptive Reuse of a 1920s Tile-Roofed Bunder Warehouse, Mangaluru, as a Maritime Heritage Centre

This design thesis documents and adaptively reuses a disused 1920s warehouse near the old Bunder (port) area of Mangaluru, a long laterite-and-timber godown with a Mangalore-tile roof that once stored coffee, cashew and tiles bound for coastal shipping. The building (treated here as a fictional, unlisted structure typical of the area) sits on a narrow plot between a busy road and the Gurupura river front, its roof partly collapsed and its timber trusses attacked by termites and monsoon damp.

The thesis has two equal halves. The documentation half produces measured drawings, a photogrammetric model of the façade and trusses, a condition and decay map, a history of the building and its trade, and a statement of significance built on the Burra Charter's aesthetic, historic, scientific and social values. The design half converts the warehouse into a maritime heritage interpretation centre with galleries on the port's trade history, workshops for tile-making and boat-building crafts, a small café on the river edge and a public riverside walk.

Every intervention is judged against conservation principles — minimum intervention, reversibility, legibility of new work — drawn from the Venice Charter 1964, the Burra Charter 2013 and the INTACH Charter 2004. The change of use is checked against NBC 2016 fire and life-safety requirements and the local zonal regulations under the Karnataka Town and Country Planning Act, 1961. The jury receives existing-condition sheets, proposal sheets, a 1:100 sectional model of the restored truss bay and a thesis report.

Abstract

Mangaluru's port quarter holds a disappearing stock of tile-roofed warehouses built for the coffee, cashew and tile trade of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Most are unlisted, privately owned and slowly collapsing, or are being demolished for concrete commercial blocks. This thesis takes one such warehouse, documents it rigorously, assesses its significance and proposes an adaptive reuse as a maritime heritage centre that keeps the building's structure, materials and spatial character legible while giving it a viable public use.

Introduction

The warehouse is roughly a long rectangular hall of load-bearing laterite walls with lime plaster, timber king-post trusses, Mangalore-pattern clay tiles on battens and a timber loft at one end. Large arched openings face the road; smaller loading doors face the river. The brief (hypothetical, modelled on city-level heritage initiatives) asks for exhibition space, craft workshops, a small archive, a café and public access to the river front.

Literature and precedent gap

Adaptive reuse in India has well-known precedents — warehouse and mill conversions in Mumbai and Ahmedabad, heritage hotels in Fort Kochi, and conservation-led projects supported by INTACH chapters. Studies of coastal Karnataka's tile-roofed commercial buildings, however, are scarce and mostly photographic. There is little documented work on how to strengthen their timber-and-laterite structure for public assembly use while meeting modern fire and accessibility codes. This thesis addresses that gap.

Existing condition vs proposed approach

• Existing: partial roof collapse, termite-damaged trusses, rising damp in laterite walls, blocked openings, informal lean-to additions, no services.
• Proposed: remove later additions after recording them, repair and splice trusses rather than replace them, re-lay salvaged tiles with new tiles marked discreetly, treat damp with lime-based methods, insert a free-standing steel mezzanine that touches the old walls lightly, add a new services-and-stair pavilion as a clearly contemporary element on the side yard.

Feasibility

• Technical: repairs use lime, laterite and timber craftspeople still active in Dakshina Kannada; new work uses light steel and glass that can be removed.
• Regulatory: change of use to assembly/exhibition is checked against NBC 2016 Part 4; the plot is checked for any prohibited or regulated zone under the AMASR Act, 1958 (applicable only if a protected monument is within range) and against local zonal regulations.
• Economic: the report compares repair versus rebuild costs per square metre and suggests revenue from workshops, café and events.

Tile-roofed warehouses in Mangaluru's old port area embody the city's trading history and a construction tradition of laterite, lime, timber and Mangalore tiles, yet they are unlisted, poorly documented and disappearing. Owners see them as obsolete; demolition and rebuilding in RCC looks cheaper and simpler. Where reuse is attempted, it often strips the interior, replaces the trusses and hides the original fabric under new finishes, so the building's significance is lost even though its shell survives.

The problem this thesis addresses is: how can a deteriorated, unlisted 1920s warehouse be documented, assessed for significance and adapted to a viable public use as a maritime heritage centre, while following accepted conservation principles and meeting present fire, structural and accessibility requirements? The answer must be demonstrated through measured drawings, a significance statement, a condition assessment and a design proposal whose every intervention is justified against conservation charters and codes.

In scope

• Complete documentation of the warehouse and its immediate plot, including later additions.
• Condition and decay mapping, repair strategy for roof, trusses, walls and openings.
• Significance assessment and conservation policy for the building.
• Adaptive-reuse design of the building and plot at 1:100, with key details at 1:20 and 1:10.
• Fire, accessibility and zonal compliance for the change of use.

Out of scope

• Structural analysis beyond rational checks and strengthening concepts to be verified by a structural engineer.
• Exhibition content design beyond gallery layouts and circulation.
• Urban conservation plan for the whole port area (only a context study is made).
• Legal acquisition or ownership questions.

The thesis follows a conservation-led design process: understand → assess → decide → design, over about 22 weeks.

Methods used: archival research, field survey and measured drawing, photogrammetry, visual condition assessment, semi-structured interviews for social value, precedent analysis and design-by-research. The report links each design decision to a line of the conservation policy.