Reflections
Renovation
– Renovation is a growing trend, it has a lot of potential to deal with different problematics such as the CO2 emission and the housing crisis.
– This master thesis shows that renovation is not only possible but can be preferable in many cases.
– Fortunately, such initiatives are already existing and hopefully, in the next year, it will be a practice even more common.
Research questions
- How can the transformation of an existing building help to reduce the present/future mankind’s footprint by the reuse of the building and make it more environment-friendly?
The first research question covers the subject of environmental sustainability. It has been treated through study cases, showing what has already been done, giving some ideas to inspire. Afterwards, environmental sustainability has been carried out in the design proposal. Offering one example of how this concept of renovation can be implemented in a clear framework, showing also the new composition of the wall to improve the building energy efficiency.
The details are shown with a double objective: the first one is to demonstrate how the renovation part can be dealt with and the latter is to put forward an alternative for new materials with re-used ones.
- How can architecture socially support a neighbourhood?
In an urban context, how can a building influence people’s behaviour?
In a very dense area, can the creation of a social hub and housing improve the general feeling in a neighbourhood?
The second question is about how architecture can have a social effect on the community around and how architecture can be useful and appreciated by the community around.
This question is harder to measure, in the reality it would be very valuable to get participation from the citizens. Nevertheless, in this master thesis, social sustainability was mainly answered thanks to a theoretical analysis of the area, thanks to the new program of the building.
Design findings and conclusion
Thanks to this project I had the chance to dig more into the field of renovation. I understood some issues that can be faced during such a process, and how they can be solved.
The process of (re)designing an existing project is different from what I have learned so far during my studies.
Some questions were already solved but new ones appeared, with the inherent difficulty that I am not the one who designed the original building and I could visit it only once. This led me to take more time to understand correctly the building. Once this step was passed, I was able to let creativity play a bit more freely with it, especially thanks to the columns beams system.
Looking for re-used materials made me very positive, I discovered that initiatives like gathering existing construction components, were taking more importance. It makes a circular economy, in terms of materials, more accessible and much easier.
Rather than being artists of space, architects need to become artists of time.
– Stewart Brand
Copyright
All the images without a specified author are mine, and for the others, more information can be found in the endnotes of the booklet.