Construction Meterials Laboratory and the Museum of Unbuilt Architecture in Eksportosta, Riga

We have an obligation to be interested in boring buildings. In the Baltics, the heritage of Soviet industrialization is dissonant and seldom praised. However, its reuse as buildings or material banks could contribute to the EU carbon neutrality goal as it is built from carbon-intensive materials. New thresholds of aesthetics for sustainable heritage management for the seemingly unworthy should be explored. Experimental preservation is a practice of non-demolition of objects rather than institutional protection and it keeps the freedom of choice and architectural intervention in valorization.

Architectural response is to experiment with the existing building by adaptive reuse — to make a counterculture monument, which is an invented term as an approach differs from a traditional one. Existing 3 story warehouse has a monumental scale, reminiscent of Romanesque churches, but no institutional protection. Instead of retrofitting it as a passenger terminal, the proposal is more appreciative of the original function, tectonics and patina. Masterplan extends the planned residential area and relocates the prospective terminal downstream the river Daugava, just outside UNESCO heritage site border and long-term river crossing red lines. Strategic minimal interventions — reorganization of entrances, new openings and a façade skin — follows the principles of circular design and Michel Serres' idea of a quasi-object with a dual program. The Building Material Laboratory is the practical part, sustaining circular construction of Riga city centre and the site particularly. The Museum of Unbuilt Architecture is the semantically loaded humane side, a public forum where to participate and explore architecture’s impact whether built or envisioned. Two corresponding cores anchor the design: one as a repurposed materials warehouse surrounded by sunlit workshops and labs, the other as an atrium void with a ring of public and exhibition spaces. Façade design adheres to the existing structure’s logic yet introduces dreamlike interaction with light through rhythmic shadows or transparency and translucency of openings into terrazzo-like panelling made from demolition waste and pigmented concrete. Design decisions not only saves 3t of embodied carbon but also redefines an overlooked heritage typology, proving its undervaluation as an asset for circular architecture experimentation.