Every year in Switzerland, 65% of waste is attributed to the construction sector. To drastically reduce this waste of raw materials and the excessive energy consumption that goes with it, we need to look at one of its causes: the obsolescence of buildings.
Throughout the long history of architecture and construction, the obsolescence of buildings has proved inexorable. Yet the pace of this process is a parameter that can inform a design approach. Indeed, a number of buildings demonstrate their capacity to adapt to new functional and cultural requirements thanks – among other things – to their technical and spatial flexibility. They thus lend themselves to a variety of uses, with an optimal transformation-to-cost ratio.
The programmatic flexibility of a building has often been discussed, notably in terms of the pairing: typological clarity – constructive modularity. While the former remains an architectural constant, the latter remains little explored. Nevertheless, modularity represents a major and fruitful challenge, given contemporary urban and ecological issues.
With:
- Putting pragmatic reversible construction into practice
Bruno KÄNEL
Architect, EPFL graduate
Reversible construction is not fundamentally difficult to apply in theory. But like any theory, putting it into practice is often complicated by external factors, whether economic, cultural or social. Yet by anticipating how a building will evolve, reversible construction makes it possible to delay its obsolescence by minimising adaptations and their costs during a future transformation. The aim of this research was to establish a new design methodology for conceiving a building that can easily adapt to new uses, makes the most of its context and has the least possible impact on the environment.
- Steel Garten: reconciling the challenges of the city of tomorrow with its industrial heritage
Charlène TAUVERON
Architect DE, graduate of ENSA Saint-Étienne
Loïs LAVOREL
Architect DE, graduate of ENSA Saint-Étienne
In the face of the climate emergency, the preservation of our resources and concerns about soils are now two issues at the heart of urban and architectural design. Through the rehabilitation of an abandoned factory in a business park, Steel Garten responds to the need to recover a city with permeable ground and to the desire to reinvent mobility so as to make the city more porous.
Discussant:
- Panos MANTZIARAS
Architect-engineer
PhD in urban planning
Director of the Fondation Braillard Architectes
Registration:
