new countryside by chen xiongfei

TOWARDS A NEW FORM OF COHABITATION IN THE COUNTRYSIDE

TOWARD A NEW FORM OF COHABITATION IN THE COUNTRYSIDE

Xiongfei Chen r0768064 Promotor: Erik Van Daele Dissertation studio: TRANSITIONS AND DIALOGUES International Master of Architecture KU Leuven, Faculty of Architecture, Campus Sint Lucas Ghent Academic year: 2020/2021

Abstract With the rapid sprawl of cities in the post-industrial era, city and land can hardly be distinguished from each other. Every condition is at the same time urban and landscape. Although land and city are juxtaposed, there is hardly any dialogue between them. Nowadays the countryside has a lot of potentials, compared to the dense city, to develop a new prototype based on dialogue between city and land, a dialogue that leads to a new form of cohabitation, a new collective space, and a new landscape. Keywords: vacant land, cohabitation, coherent landscape, appropriation

1. REFRENCE PAPER

INTRODUCTION

Nowadays, many villages and industrial colonies that were once prosperous and heavily populated are in decline or even have fallen into disuse. Some of them already went through the original accumulation of population and the formation of early production-based communities that accompanied the emergence of new industries (such as the steel and coal mining boom that followed the Industrial Revolution). Now they are facing the problem of the loss of population and the abandonment of productive space due to changes in industrial structure. At the same time, the sprawl of big cities has led to an increase in land prices in the city centres, and the overpopulation has led to an increase in urban unemployment and crime rates. The expansion of cities has led to an increase in the value of land in the suburbs and make it possible for repopulation of these forgotten lands. However, today's society no longer operates as an agrarian or industrial society. In this way, a more dynamic, flexible and adaptable community is needed. based on the book Repopulating utopia by Niklaas Maak, the author analyzed several realistic models of rivival in shrinking villages, as well as the innitial forming process of a new prototype like familistere to see the difference between the generation and regeneration of the community.

Hambach mine

Hambach mine Hambach mine

Manheim

1984

2010

Manheim

1995

Manheim

2020

2018

2020

The growing of Hambach open-pit and the shrinkage of Manheim

REPOPULATION IN A NOMADIC WAY

The transformation of Manheim is particularly vivid in the different historical periods. 1950s and 2010s are two important time points which brought about two contrasting population fluctuations. ·In the 1950s the rise of the coal mining industry led to Manheim's transition from a farming village to a commuter town, and the influx of miners and workers caused the first demographic change. Large numbers of bungalow were built at that time. ·As the open-pit mine expanded westwards and southwards, by 2012 the area where Manheim is located was included in the development of mine. The working families who had lived in Manheim since the last century and the farmers who had worked on the land for generations had to move away. In the meantime, during the years of demolition work, the unused houses were served as the temporary settlement for 220 refugees. So far a second population exchange has taken place in Manheim. ·In 2019, when activists from all over the world began to occupy and settle the woods around Manheim, demolition work was underway, refugees and indigenous people moved out and the number of protesters increased, Manheim began its third demographic shift. In fact, every demographic change is a transformation of the usage scenario by the non-local population. Until 2019 Manheim's new residents have changed the use of existing spaces or created new architectural prototypes: refugees occupying unused office buildings and churches as temporary housing, while activists building tree houses in the vicinity - both redefining the properties of the original territory.

898AD

1950s

2016

2019

Commuter town

Temporary refugee settlement

Environmentalist base camp

Farmhouses + Bungalow

Farmhouses + Bungalow + Tree house, hut, tent, caravans

miner and worker

commuter + local farmer

+ local farmer

+ refugees

Property Farming village Building Type Farmhouses

Population structure local Farmer

+ activists + Riot police, security guard

FROM NEW BORN TO REBORN

Niklaas Maak introduced Le Familistere, the ''social palace'', as a successful realization of Chales Foutier's phalansttery. It was built by Jean-Baptise Godin, a manufacturer of cast-iron stoves, as a revolutionary new habitat for his workers. It was operational for almost 100 years and largely influenced the history of modern collective and communal housing. It is a community where the residents are linked by relations of production and everything is done with productivity as a priority. For example, it is a complex with two kindergardens, an infant school for todders and children up to age four, and a bambinat for four to six, allowing their mother to work. Each of the three buildings had a roofed courtyard, where the children could play in all weather when their parents are working. In the generation of Familistere, the forming of a new working-class community is driven by the force of industry. As a new prototype of community it tends to have a homogeneous demography. Residents who are linked by work relationships live a productive and economically oriented communal life in a simplified society. Whilst in a new community mode like the Hunziker Areal, it is made up of a nomadic population in which people practice diverse values and open social relations. The Hunziker Areal in the north of Zurich is a pioneering urban developement project. It was built on the site of what used to be the Hunziker cement factory. As a project implemented by the cooperative,“Mehr als Wohnen”(More Than Living), offers living space for approximately 1,200 people in 13 energy-efficient buildings and also serves as a working place for around 150 people.

Cohabitation in Le familistère de Guise, France

Cooperatives are a popular development model in the German-speaking part of Switzerland. Under this model, the residents are both participants and shareholders. They are also involved in regular democratic voting meetings on the development and day-to-day operation of the settlement, weighing the views of the cooperative and experts to reach a final decision. The settlement has an annual event, Hunziker Fest, which is open to the city. Residents can apply for stalls and a percentage of stalls can be applied for by outside organisations. The food on sale is mainly made from ingredients grown on the settlement's farms. Both cases are looking for a built frame that would enable people to experiment with the predominant social constructions In the context of their respective era. From the closed commune in Familistere to a sharing collective in Hunziker Fest, the concept of an ideal way of cohabitation is changing.

Cohabitation in Familistere

Cohabitation in the post-industrial era

demography

determined

nomadic and dynamic

morphology

centralised

decentralised

social relation

nuclear family

open co-residential relationships

residents

workers from the same factory

people of different professions

formation

top-down

bottom-up

neighborhood

Homogeneous

Heterogeneous

mechanism

economic and production-oriented

Evolution of the concept of ideal cohabitation

diverse value orientation

A BOTTOM-UP APPROPRIATION IN EXISTING BUILDING

''Many building typologies of late modernism will soon look like ancient ruins...The changes of work, in demographics, technology, and social rituals would require new strategies and typologies...'' Niklas Maak refers his concern about the failure of existing building types for in a changing society. Given the building is a very carbon-intense practice, he assumed there are better solutions to reuse the dead building. A bottom-up appropriation using existing building typology has already took place in Riace and Tarnac. Riace, the 2,000-year-old declined after the Second World War due to the loss of young workforce. From 1998 onwards, the introduction of more than 800 refugees and the arrival of young people fleeing from urban changed the way Riace used to operate. Agricultural and farming traditions were transformed. Farmhouses became workshops for artists and craftsman from all over the world. Also in the case of Tarnac, hardly any of the new residents of the countryside are from rural area. These anarchists from the urban took over the existing facilities. They used the barn, a building type cannot found in the city, as a platform for their politics, education and selforganisation. According to Lefebvre, appropriation is a function of lived space, that is, "dominated, hence passively experienced space, which imagination seeks to change and appropriate." Lived space is a place of passion where the user/inhabitant encounters resistance, which inevitably involves conscious action and struggle. Entailing time, lived space can be qualified as "directional, situational, or relational because it is qualitative, fluid, and dynamic."

Old barn as a university in Tarnac

Decentralization is still going on. Government buildings, office buildings and shopping malls in urban areas have fewer traces of humanity due to the shift to online services. While data centres are becoming the "museums and libraries" of our time, public buildings in cities are becoming empty. "deconcentration" has led to the reoccupation of the countryside—people gradually moving from larger, more densely settled places into smaller, more lightly settled places. It is a rebound, not a reversal. They are not returning to a pioneer life of farming. They are using technology, a booming economy, and new attitudes toward work to diminish the "friction" of distance.

CONCLUSION Nowadays when we talk about the ideal typology for habitat, it will more link to a hybrid context and deal with existing intervention and landscape. In the cases of the repopulation of shrinking villages, we can see how appropriation acts as a critical and imaginative force that actively participate in the production of social space. The cycles of production and destruction of space create openings that allow interstitial practices to emerge. These appropriatory activities are able to produce a meaningful space in its own right. Although some of the practices seems too ephemeral to generate any architecture content, temporory spaces are indeed important of production of the provocation of dialogue about the very meaning of the existing context.

REFERENCE [1] Lefebvre, H., and I. M. Lorea. La producción del espacio. 2013. [2] Michaela Heinemann,. "A Culture of Appropriation: Strategies of Temporary Reuse in East Germany." Master diss., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2005. [3] Godin, Jean B. The Association of Capital with Labor: Being the Laws and Regulations of Mutual Assurance Regulating the Social Palace, at Guise, France. 1881. [4] Johnson, Kenneth M., and John B. Cromartie. "The Rural Rebound and its Aftermath." Population Change and Rural Society (n.d.), 25-49. doi:10.1007/1-4020-3902-6_2.

Tree house In the vicinity of Manheim

LE GRAND HORNU

Le Grand Hornu complex was built between 1810 and 1930 by Henry De Gorge. It is located in Hornu, the middle of the Province of Hainaut. Le Grand Hornu constitutes an urban-scale project, which includes the workshops and offices of the colliery, the workers’ estate of some 450 exceptionally comfortable houses for that time, each with a private garden. The workers' estate is also equipped with a school, a hospital, public squares, a library and a dance hall. At the beginning of the Industrial Era, it was regard as a unique example of functional urban planning on the European continent.

By studying the historical maps from the 18th to 20th century of the Hornu disrtict, we can see that the introduction of the railway and road lines distinguished between forest and farmland, splitting up the complete land into more fragmented plots. As the factories expanded, more and more workers came to Hornu and began to settle there. Industrial buildings for coal processing and mechanical engineering were built in parallel with housing for the workers, and Hornu gradually became a separate community with the coal industry at its heart. The increase in the number of workers led to a residential area around the oval-shaped machine-making workshop, and the old country roads were replaced by industrial railway tracks. The growth of the community led to an increase in traffic from all parts of the country to Hornude, and the Mons-Condé Canal, opened in 1818, was covered by the E19/E42 highway, and the old Roman road and postroad were covered by the newly introduced motorway. The machine-making factory was eventually converted into a museum after several rounds of repairs. Although the industry that was the heart of the community has disappeared, the community continues to develop.

Section le Grand Hornu 1849

Postroad before 1777

Forest

First industrial railway introduced in 1830

Sorting and washing transfer station

First industrial railway introduced in 1830

Machine-making Workshop from1827

Section le Grand Hornu 2020

Forest

Shopping mall cora Hornu

Dwellings

Musee des Arts Contemporains Grand-Hornu

Dwellings

2. URGENCY

Region

MATRIX

The metropolis has been facing a housing shortage for a long time, in particular in social rental housing and student housing,

Unemployment and ho 50% population are u while in the same time t mobile, with 42% turno of those young people maintained accommod due to the high unemplo

Textile manufacturing traditions, Industry heritages. The Lille metropolitan area: Uneven development between urban and rural areas. An influx of young people from the countryside into the city, and urban housing prices are rising. While plenty of abandoned buildings in the countryside are not being used.

Industrial transformatio turned its back on textil manufacturing is no lo are many opportunities 'technical' textiles and th support for the idea of education, design, produ facilities in the town to areas

The dispersed spatial condition of Flanders, and by larger extent the area stretching from Lille to Rotterdam cannot be categorised as a “peri-urban” condition and was therefore coined All City/All Land. But this type of land use and corresponding urbanisation principles are reaching a tipping point, resulting in numerous unwanted effects.

Farm lands and agricultu taken over by sprawl u rethinking the reciproca man and land.

SOCIAL SUSTAINABILITY

ECONOMICAL SUSTAINABILITY

SOCIO-CULTURAL IDENTITY

City

Neighborhood

Project

ousing issues: almost under 30 years old, the population is very over in 5years. many e are living in poorly dation currently, also oyment rate.

Repopulation The population are heading to the matrepoliton constantly for better job opportunity in the big circle.

Alternative housing. Collective living in countryside.

on: Roubaix has not les. While large-scale onger feasible, there s for 'innovative' or here has been strong f retaining research, uction and marketing support these niche

Collective Production A rural economy based on agricultural production

Productive community. agricultural production + Innovative production

ural landscapes were urban development. al relations between

An pre-existing building used to be a school for children of workers.

A alternative scheme of habitat. Collective living + adaptive reuse of existing built environment + village life

Many people living in private rented accommodation that is poorly maintained. In 2009 alone, Roubaix’s social services had to take action some 3,000 times to address the issue of the poor standards in private rented housing. A large proportion of the people living in Roubaix therefore have a high risk of social exclusion. ·Almost 50% population under 30 (2017). ·Population is very mobile, 42% turnover in 5 years ·45% unemployed rate of 15 to 25 year olds.

Unemployment trends in Lille, Roubaix-Tourcoing

Demographics trend in Roubaix

Roubaix is called the " Manchester French" in the xix th century, rivaling and even surpassing the English textile power. From 1970, difficulties accumulated in the Roubaix textile industry. Executives haven't really invested in synthetic textiles; production equipment is too old to support a new race for profitability. Roubaix has not turned its back on textiles. While large-scale manufacturing is no longer feasible, there are many opportunities for ‘innovative’ or ‘technical’ textiles and there has been strong support for the idea of retaining research, education, design, production and marketing facilities in the town to support these niche areas. In recent years, the city has also seen the return of a new textile dynamic, with, for example, the establishment of a Showroomprive.com site in the Alma district in 2015, the creation of the Tiers lieu Plateau Fertile dedicated to textiles or even the very symbolic return of the workshops of the Vanoutryve company to its city of origin in 2018 . The whole of Roubaix’s town centre was declared a tax-free zone. The main advantages for firms in such an area are exemptions, or partial exemptions, for 5 years from Business Tax (mainly a payroll tax), Corporation Tax and Property Tax, particularly for small businesses. To obtain these benefits however at least one-third of all new employees must come from within a specified local area.

19 century textile manufacturing in Roubaix

Fashion green hub, innovative textile industry in Roubaix

Along the canal Roubaix – Tourcoing there are plenty of vacant and dispersed territories such as abandoned industrial plants, working-class quarters, and waste infrastructural sites.

Vacant lands along Roubaix-Tourcoing canal

Ever since the 19th-century architects have been experimenting with architectural prototypes as “ideal types” that introduce progressive dialogues between work, housing and landscape. However, Projects such as le grand hornu in Belgium and la Familistère in France Both ended up with an isolated social island cut from the surrounding landscape.

Le grand hornu, Belgium

Le familistère de Guise, France

Our society is evolving towards new models in the metabolism of city and land. By imagining new prototypes, we can make a statement on the evolution of new urban and landscape configurations. We, therefore, need to question new ways of living, working, and new social relations.

LANDSCAPE

LIVING

WORKING

3. POSITION

Along the canal Roubaix – Tourcoing there are plenty of vacant and dispersed territories such as abandoned industrial plants, working-class quarters, and waste infrastructural sites. My project is situated in the outskirts of Roubaix – Tourcoing canal area, where there is great potential because of the good connection to the surrounding cities Roubaix, kortijk and mouscron. Among those vacant territories, there is the site I chose where used to be an old school building Collège de la salle. In the past, it offered free education for the children of farmers and workers in the nearby villages. So it has a certain social connection with the inhabitants for a long time.

And now it is the joint of railway and motorway between Roubaix and Flanders. It also bridges villages like wattreloos and Estaimpuis together with a vast country landscape.

VILLAGE

AGRICULTURE

WASTELAND

WETLAND

PRIV

SECTION A-A

The current vacant land is defined by 4 different interfaces, A railway and an international motorway are runn neighboring village. While at the same time natural landscape and agricultural lands occupy the south and east s 40

RAILWAY

WETLAND

VITE GARDEN

SECTION B-B

ning diagonally at the northeast corner of the site. On the other side, there are scattered country houses of the side of the place. 41

4. INTERVENTION

When we look into the building, we can find Different space types with unique spatial qualities. For example, the high entrance just brings the sceneary inside naturally; the double-height space which used to be the old auditorium from the school owns a certain Public quality.

Foyer of mid wing

Ground floor of right wing

1st floor of right wing

1st floor of left wing 5 5 3 2

3rd floor of right wing

CO-WORKING SPACE

INTERIOR COLLECTIVE SPACE

RESIDENTIAL UNITS

OPEN-AIR COLLECTIVE SPACE 50

The building with its surrounding land can serve as a mediating space to enhance the dialogue between cohabitation, local landscape, and local production. So my intervention will mainly focus on how to create a coherent landscape with the surroundings, and introduce new open spaces into a collective commune. To soften the boundary between the residence and the neighborhood and create a better local circulation.

AGRICULTURE

WASTELAND

WETLAND

PRIVITE GARDEN

The new design intervention takes the existing spatial properties as a reference. By preserving the original structural framework and materials of the building as much as possible, different types of spaces in the old building can be adaptively reused for the social and productive activities. The original staircases are retained for evacuation from the first floor to the patio. On The first floor of the southeast wing, the residential units and the collective space are distributed flexibly. At the end of the building, there is an outdoor terrace made out of scaffoldings as an extension of the public space with a good view of the agricultural landscape. On the other side, the double-height space provides a shared working space, with two cores for verticle circulation. The middle wing provides a roaming experience as an extra circulation system that connects each floor both horizontally and vertically. On the second floor, the stairs and corridors in the residential area are thrown out. Then we get a flexible interior space for the adaptation of the housing units. On the third floor of the building, the exposed rooftop on one side was retained as a roof garden, ending the circulation with a freely spread space. Skylights are added to provides extra sunlight to the working area. On the other wing of the building, the rooftop is covered by a greenhouse structure. It is incorporated into the top floor of the residential area, with one part insulated as a living space and the other part reserved for a winter garden. The living space can also be adapted to different seasons, from minimal living space with a winter garden to a large space with an open terrace in the summer.

6 7

GROUNDFLO

OOR PLAN

Pre-existing structure

1. Entrance 2. Garden 3. Cafe and restaurant 4. Community services 5. Shop 6. Workshop 7. Logistic

10m

2 4

Pre-existing structure

1. Housing unit 2. Collective space 3. Outdoor terrace 4. Co-working space

10m N

1ST FLOOR PLAN

1 2

2 1

Pre-existing structure

1. Housing unit 2. Collective space 3. Outdoor terrace 4. Co-working space

10m

2ND FLOOR PLAN

Pre-existing structure 1. Housing unit 2. Collective space 3. Outdoor terrace 4. Rooftop garden

10m

3RD FLOOR PLAN

The current landscape in between the motorway and the building is underutilized and serves mainly as a buffer from the traffic. However, it has the potential to become a new landscape type in dialogue with the local economy and recreation. In the project, the entire ground floor together with the wetland is open to everybody and serves as a place to meet, eat and have fun. The interior open space becomes the extension of the landscape and provides a nonstop social space for those who live here and people coming from the neighborhood.

The middle wing of the existing building together with the former entrance has transferred into a collective space combined with the circulation system. By removing the roof and floors, the sunlight and rainwater can easily come in, encouraging the landscape to evolve itself. At the other side, a canopy attaches to the inner facade as a threshold in between the vast open space and the intimate collective space.

A new structure frame is introduced to the ground floor, creating larger openings in order to bring the landscape inside and blur the boundary between interior and exterior.

A 4 meters-high extra opening is added to the building. In this way, the existing path then manages to go through the long facade and reach the inner patio, bridging the public space of both sides

Roof top garden

Double height working space

Workshop & Gallery

The patio can be used for various uses, from less intense seasonal activities to weekly or daily routines. To strengthen the link between producer and consumer, here the local farmers can offer their products at fair prices. And the hard surface under the canopy can be used as a logistic platform, where mobile events can happen. It can turn into a market, a cinema, a stage and other things. It also invites people to share the crops of farm and experience the agricultural production.

Recreation area

Co-working area

Social space

19.The diversity of interior spaces enhance the dialogue between different users. The merge of horizontal and vertical spaces enhances the daily communication between users on different floors. The connection between the garden and the coworking space creates visual and physical contact between both side.

To make a flexible and adaptive housing scheme, We offer a set of housing solutions that can be modified based on the will of the residents. In the initial stage of the project, we offer half of the floor area as a starting residential unit for single youth or young couples. The other part of the remaining space is used as a temporary collective living area. As the demography structure changes, each household can occupy the common area next to it for additional living space.

PHASE 1

PHASE 2

PHASE 3

PHASE 1

PHASE 2

Phase 1

Phase 2

5.ANNEX

References

Military-hospital antwerpen, achtergael

Parckfarm, Brussels, Taktyk

Social housing, Mulhouse, LACATON&VASSAL

Melopee School, Ghent, XDGA

House for a Young Couple,Tokyo, Junya Ishigami + Associates

PC Carita, Melle, aDVVT

Leping foundation headquarters, Beijing, 众建筑

白井屋酒店, 前桥市, 藤本壮介建筑事务所

PAKT, Antwerp, MAN architecten

Biblioteca universitaria, Gent, Office KGDVS

De Mouterij, Leuven, BOGDAN & VAN BROECK

SILODAM, Amsterdam, MVRDV

Ground floor, north wing

1st floor, north wing

1st floor, northwing

2nd floor, north wing

Ground floor, mid wing

1st floor, mid wing

2nd floor, mid wing

Ground floor, south wing

1st floor, south wing

3rd floor, south wing

2nd floor, south wing