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.