Next event:
ERINN SAVAGE – Performance
Tomorrow 15:00 GMT

Deconstruction - reconstruction - deconstruction

Abandoned warehouses viewed as a resource in building a new masterplan, resulting in a circular use of materials.

Industrial and post-industrial areas of Antwerp

As industry has moved areas and buildings have been left behind, in close proximity to the city centre.

District plan: existing and proposed masterplan

33 warehouses have been identified in the district of Den Dam, which lack potential for new uses and for creating public space. These can be deconstructed in order to create a new masterplan made up of the same materials.

Catalogue of elements and materials

Elements and materials from the deconstruction process have been mapped and organised as a database for creating new buildings.

Deconstruction and its potential

Model 1 shows a method of mental deconstruction as a way to study each element of the space and building in relation to its qualities of light, texture, tectonics and spatial qualities. Model 2 shows one way of testing the new uses of structural elements.

A new public building

Through the thesis I have tested the extremes of reuse, in relation to its potential. A new public workshop and market building has been created with a very different expression to the material's original use.

New uses of structural elements

The structure has been taken in use in different ways to allow for large and interesting spaces within.

Combination of brick wall sections

To allow for minimal deconstruction of the original materials, bricks have been deconstructed as larger segments of wall. These have then been combined to create a regular grid form of a variety of brick patterns, allowing for it to be further deconstructed and reused in the future.

New potential of elements

The main workshop space expresses the exposed steel, brick and corrugated metal sheets, keeping an industrial look but used in new ways. The spaces are lit by diffused daylight through large areas of polycarbonate sheets.

Facades

The facades of the storage buildings and the workshops take in use a similar expression, only differenced by the glazing and the roof form.