Article 7 of the Europan 18 Results Catalogue
Check out the articles of the Europan 18 catalogue!
Learn more about each theme and sub-theme, through the articles of the catalogue.
Read the article « Transforming Ensembles: From Driving-Force to Driving-Source » is extracted from the E18 Catalogue of Results
The article, written by Bernd Vlay (AT), architect, teacher, researcher, co-founder of Studio Vlay-Streeruwitz in Wien, examines Europan 18 projects that work with ensembles of heritage sites that are “broken” by loss of life, function, or connectivity. Through careful project and process design, heritage itself becomes the trigger for a “second life.” This happens via re-environmentalization: site specific geographies activate environmental, cultural, and social traces to enable multi scalar rehabilitation. The approach dissolves the binary of preservation vs. demolition; the already there is decoded and orchestrated as the source of transformation.
Three families of strategies emerge:
1-Productive Blasting: Strong archetypes are “blasted” to reveal suppressed qualities.
2-Scenographic Weavings: In peri urban settings, projects stitch fragmented landscapes into new centralities.
3-Transformative Vectors: Linear infrastructures become territorial drivers. The wining eams operate across scales and modes, cultural, social, historical, programmati, activating the “genetic code” of place. The result is an eco-geographical stance favoring resource driven sensitivity over spectacle: ensembles embrace “the grand modesty of a new normal,” where second life grows from the latent potential of the first.
>> Click here to read more about the article from Bernd Vlay