Józsefváros, revitalization of a sleepy suburb.

In Józsefváros, the urban, social and mental rupture that has been concentrated on the territory since the end of the Soviet regime prevents its renewal. Between the danger of "ghettoization" and the risk of extreme gentrification, the stakes of reintegrating this suburb into the Budapest territorial system make it a determining situation.

Building on the existing resources of Józsefváros, the territorial strategy attempts to innervate this neglected territory with high added value through interventions at different scales. At the metropolitan level, the redevelopment of the east-west axis, the Baross avenue, begins a reconciliation between hyper-center and suburb. Regarding the urban and architectural dimension of Józsefváros, 3 tools have been put in place in order to energize and perpetuate its situation. Therefore formulating a guide plan, the idea is to develop a base soil as a stabilizing force and create an archipelago of contextualized public spaces, creators of "capabilities". At the urban level, the productive spaces directly linked to the major axis act as gateways to the territory. Stemming from public management, these are stabilized spaces where active ground floors interact with the rest of the neighborhood. Interface between here and elsewhere, the main challenge of these spaces lies in their ability to articulate the metropolitan and local spheres. Therefore, each of them becomes a vector of architectural production. At the same time, we operate on the architectural scale using two other urban tools. If the structuring spaces make it possible to perpetuate the existing building, the alternative spaces represent a win-win solution between owners and users and allow collective uses of certain private plots, placed in a latency period. Here, the architectural project maintains a dialectical narrative with its environment since it rests in part on an existing masonry wall, openly displays the sections of brick walls of the surrounding buildings and reinterprets local architectural forms. In its finality, the architectural project expresses through a network of qualified spaces, a work of interfaces between public, collective and private. We move from local shops and neighborhood kitchen to a community center, a daycare center, then a student residence. Depending on the built masses, suitable spaces for different uses and users are created, allowing a return to the common.