Reconciling Post-Industrial Townscapes

The project is a proposal on how to challenge social, environmental and spatial difficulties we experience in our modern society. Vacant industrial areas provide space to address problems such as segregation and unemployment. At the same time they provide a chance to reshape the factory to a new configuration of public space

Reconciling Post-industrial Townscapes is a proposal on how to revitalize post industrial areas in a social inclusive manner. The MMC site, situated in the heart of Beato, offers space to generate public space as well as new opportunities for the local surrounded communities. In the project cultural-historical values are used as the connecting factor and can lead to the restoration of a segregated society. The essence of the project is to transform the area with simple interventions, for and by local residents, in a spatial, functional and ecological sense. Functional wise, the industrial buildings are transformed to create inspiring indoor and outdoor learning environments, as part of a new opportunity education center. The goal is to open opportunities for jobs, by stimulating learning and making with the presence of history, nature and play. Spatially, the industrial site is manipulated to create a fluent and diverse routing network. Therefor interiors of factories are used to create spatial sequences of open and enclosed public spaces. To intervene ecologically, one of the educational functions is the creation of terra cotta earth bricks, where all the new additions are materialized with, and all buildings on the site are transformed to close loops and to get closer to nature. The common thread of all these interventions is to reconcile the new user values into the existing historical, post-industrial context.