Pedagogies for a non-extractive construction practice
Delft University of Technology2024/2025, collaboration/individual
Concisely, my graduation project centers around the potential of the tools of the architect in the reimagination of the material and cultural components of our abandoned industrial heritage.
For this, I worked with the site of the Lageweg; situated on the meeting point of the Twentieth century belt of Antwerp and the formerly independent municipality of Hoboken. On the edge of the fine-grained urban fabric of Hoboken sits a sizable post-industrial plot; largely abandoned in the past decennia and awaiting its redevelopment as part of the cities’ ongoing densifications.
In the concatenation of halls and workshops that steadily grew from the early 20th century onwards, different metallurgical industries produced a multitude of products, ranging from oil barrels for the neighbouring petroleum industry, to car rims for German manufacturers and to beautifully decorated tin boxes which have today become sought after collectables. The physical remnants of these industrial processes tell a story of a quickly industrialised country. A development that relied heavily on exploitative labour conditions and extractive practices both in Belgium and in its colonies. Yet, one that simultaneously resulted in a rapid growth of Hoboken’s population and the emergence of a vivid community life that subsequently suffered notably when the companies moved their production elsewhere around the turn of the millennium.
How does one imagine a renewed life among these remnants of a past productivity? One in which a polluting and extractive industry no longer has a place, but in which its productive nature is still valued? In search of an answer to these questions, the project develops as both an urban plan for the site, which was designed in collaboration with Sacha Oberski and Richard Múdry, as well as an individual architectural project situated in this urban plan.
One of the main aspirations of the urban plan is to open up the concatenation of industrial halls through the disassembly of the structures that were least promising for a future use or too severely damaged to re-use. Thereby creating a certain porosity in the large plot and providing new public space alongside the remaining existing buildings that will receive a new use. Regarding these new uses of the re-used structures on the given site, we propose for an educational program to feature centrally along other public program, housing and workspaces. Thereby letting the site regain its social and productive importance for both the surrounding inhabitants and the wider region.
Building upon this ambition, the individual project proposes a secondary school that offers vocational education; focussing on construction in a non-extractive manner. A place to share knowledge on and learn how to re-use, how to repair, and how to build with reclaimed building materials alongside those that can be grown and/or produced regeneratively. An additional program is proposed in the form of a dependance to the Maakfabriek (a collective workshop already present onsite), thereby slightly alleviating the pressing demand for more affordable workplaces in the city, whilst simultaneously allowing for an exchange of materials, work and ideas with the school. As a material starting point, the project composes of two existing industrial buildings (which were respectively constructed in 1924 and 1960), as well as structural elements from the disassembled halls that currently stand next to it. In the drawings, the colour code illustrates which construction elements are existing, which are reconfigured on-site and which are newly introduced. In this way, the architecture embodies the values that lie at the hart of the proposed educational program.
Delft University of Technology2023, collaboration
Collaborators: Danil Oort and Bo Vissers
The Urban Architecture studio (titlde; Material Lives) explored the merit of small scale interventions in an ‘unremarkable’ primary school building from the 1980’s, built using prefabricated concrete columns and floors and brick facades panels. The matter of small but fruitful interventions in our existing buildings can be seen as increasingly relevant in a milieu where contemporary design and building practices simply cannot be sustained. A heightened sensitivity towards the material natures of both the pre-existing and the proposed intervention became leading throughout the whole process. After collectively researching and rebuilding the complete building on scale 1_36 with all the students in the studio, different interventions were proposed by smaller subgroups. The decision was made to, in collaboration with Danil Oort and Bo Vissers, create a new entrance directly facing the street.
With the design, we strive to strengthen both new and pre-existing connections between the neighbourhood, the school and the courtyard behind by providing a new entrance that directly borders the street. A warm and open entrance is made using simple engineered timber elements, thus introducing a contrast in texture and appearance to both the interior and exterior whilst simultaneously appreciating the systematized and industrialized nature of the building.
Materials used in final 1_6 model:
Painted foam, Triplex, Laminated pinewood, Solid pine wood, Perspex, Brass coated hinges, Painted styrene, Painted stick, Wood-glue
Materials represented:
Brick, Reinforced concrete, Laminated Veneer Lumber, Laminated pinewood, Solid pine wood, Glass, Brass coated hinges, Brass, Led tube, Screws
Rehabilitation of a 12th century
Cistercian abbey
Architecture Academy Mendrisio2023, individual
The project for the Wild Garden Trust followed out of an invitation by Prof. F. Torzo and assistants A. Lebot and J. Redpath, to investigate the possibilities that arise when regarding buildings from the 12th to 18th century in Southern England as possible foundations for contemporary life.
As stated in the brief;
“By exploring the value inherent in the existing structures, or fragments thereof, we can derive reasons to retain and add to these, emancipating the ruins from the condition of still images or romanticized postcards. We believe that the most vital tool for preservation is the care that only life and use can bring. ”
The roughly defined program was meant to include a multitude of public destinations/facilities, in alliance with a small number of residences for those who work on-site, all revolving around a plant nursery. Out of the three proposed sites, Waverley abbey; a 12th century Cistercian abbey, was chosen as an interesting case for this challenging proposition.
In search of a way to suitably house the Wild Garden trust in and among the ruins of Waverley Abbey, the type of the cloister garden is explored and adapted, creating public and private gardens enclosed by both old and new. Finding a ‘geborgenheid’ in the vastness of the floodplain and creating again a place for life and work. An earnest, austere and warm architecture is what is strived for, with an absence of superfluities that somehow reminds of the lives of the Cistercian monks and lay brothers that were lived here before.
Upon entering the floodplain, looking to the south-west, one is greeted by a fragmented hint of a building that is largely obscured by a rich thicket. The thicket will, at some point during its lifetime, reinstate the presence of the former church in the open plain, before continuing to grow even larger. When approached further along the path, an opening is visible and the silent north facade with the central entrance presents itself.
Roughly situated on the footprint of the former cloister, a public garden is created, surrounded by the entrance, the main hall, the remains of the chapter house, which might serve as a scenography for open air performances, and the kitchen and restaurant, extending with an open air room into the former Lay-brothers’ refectory. The second garden, characterised by a more narrow profile, is enclosed by the native tree nursery that extends into the former monks’ dormitory, seven guest residences and a communal kitchen. Linking the more private and domestic sphere of the residences with the more public program is the library, modestly sticking out above the rest of the building and serving a wide view of the floodplain from the reading room. The library provides literature and a small herbarium for both visitors and guest researchers and/or artist.
The aforementioned nursery hosts different subspecies of the Whitebeam (Sorbus Aria) as well as black poplar, willow, alder and sessile oak among other endemic species that are loosing habitat in the area. This is done to assist in the restoration of Englands biodiversity through reforestation, whilst simultaneously offering a resource for green woodworking workshops in the main hall when the trees are planted around the abbey.
Architecture Academy Mendrisio2023, collective
Collaborator: Thomas Whiting
During my exchange at the Architecture Academy Mendrisio, I attended the elective by Pavel Kuznetsov, in which the rich and often utopian architectural practice of the early 20th century Soviet Union was treated in a series of lectures. Parallel to the overview that the lectured provided, we were invited to engage further with specific cases.
As such, Thomas Whiting and I researched the life and work of Ivan Leonidov (1902-1959), from which a series of models of the following projects was made; The Lenin Institute and the Film Factory, both from 1927; The Club of New Social Type from 1928 and finally the Palace of Culture for the Proletarskii District of Moscow, 1930.
After the 1917 Russian Revolution, Peoples Houses morphed into workers clubs as Russia moved from monarchic rule to adopt a socialist form of government. These clubs were sponsored by Trade Unions and a standard workers’ club often included many socio-cultural and educational activities as well as various sports activities. Overall, it was a space where workers could recreate, socialise and learn after a shift at work. But it was also learning how to behave in the societal shift towards the “new man” brought about by the revolution.
Leonidov’s Social clubs are paradigmatic of the social condensers that were prevailing among his contemporaries. Yet crucially, it is in both the revisioning of the program and in the spatial arrangement of this program where Leonidov’s projects differ from the rest. In the four projects that we modeled, the program is broken up into a series of simple geometrical shapes, such as squares, circles and crosses in plan, as well as pyramids, spheres and hyperboloids in volume.