Housing and Community Development

Saving Superman is an endeavor to preserve the Industrial Trust Building, known in Providence as the Superman Building. Placed on the National Trust’s list of America’s 11 Most Endangered Historic Places in 2019, RISD’s Department of Interior Architecture joined forces with Providence Preservation Society to explore the reuse of the Superman Building in the final semester of the MA in Adaptive Reuse Program. Equipped with data, historical context, opinions, ideas, and optimism, seven students engaged in immersive research and met with city planners, development consultants, local business stakeholders, and technical experts to design speculations for one of Providence’s—and Rhode Island’s—most urgent architectural, economic development, and public image issues.