Case Study
Layers of Permanence
Detail
(RE)USING VACANT BUILDING STRUCTURES
April 20-27, 2024. Volos, Greece
LAYERS OF PERMANENCE. A design & build workshop looking at how to employ salvaged building elements in the (re)use of existing structures in concrete. Hands-on experimentation in international groups via component studies, physical models, construction mock-ups, and full-scale prototypes to explore how reclaimed materials can be combined to activate the otherwise vacant building stock to host ephemeral spaces.
VOLOS, GREECE. A city with several historic layers, with a significant score in adaptive reuse of building structures, yet with a considerable vacant building stock in concrete or stone. A city in transition, eventually with a high potential in harvesting salvaged building components and materials, extracted from buildings undergoing upgrade, renovation, or demolition works. A city in the course of gentrification, yet in need of temporary spaces.
GREECE, 2020s. A construction industry that hasn’t formally integrated directives of circular economy, a society that isn’t consciously applying principles of recycling; yet a building culture that has been informally integrating building elements with past lives into new building configurations for centuries.
In the following years, next to the remaining large-scale abandoned industrial building envelopes is added a significant number of medium- to small-size empty buildings; deserted older small-scale houses built in stone or half-finished structures bearing almost nothing but the concrete skeleton, typical of the Greek building construction practices, waiting for more prosperous times for the house to be completed . Furthermore, during the economic crisis of the 2010s, several offices and many commercial spaces shut down, increasing the vacant building stock, in a city where the main construction activity for years was almost solely powered by subsidized small-scale renovation works for energy performance upgrades of existing buildings.
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All image rights © Mario Rinke
Partners
University of Antwerp [BE] (coordinator) | Mario RINKE, Frederik VANDYCK
Amsterdam Academy of Architecture [NL] | Jeroen van MACHELEN, Machiel SPAAN
NTNU, Trondheim [NO]| Arnstein Olav GILBERG, August SCHMIDT
University of Liechtenstein [LI]| Urs MEISTER, Carmen RIST-STADELMANN
University of Thessaly, Volos [GR] | Maria VRONTISSI