Value Assessment in Adaptive Reuse. Towards an integrated framework. Flanders + Wallonia.

Abstract

This dissertation explores the applicability of value assessment in an adaptive reuse process. The assignment of heritage values is an established method in heritage conservation to determine significance of the built heritage. It has found expression in theory, practice and legislation. However, change in the built environment, whether through natural or human intervention, is inevitable. Adaptive reuse addresses these changes, recognising their impact on the fabric and significance of the building, and aims to manage them to ensure a sustainable future for the building. The reinterpretation of what exists must also be considered in terms of our desire to add our own layer that reflects the time in which we live. Accordingly, the process of adapting existing buildings to current needs takes place at the intersection of heritage preservation and contemporary architecture and implies the need for a balance between heritage and architectural values. Using the two selected Belgian regions of Flanders and Wallonia as an example, this research investigates the use of values in four thematic areas - history, legislation, practice, and design. The focus is on immovable architectural heritage, particularly individual buildings, excluding archaeological sites, village scapes, townscapes, and landscapes. The argumentation by means of heritage values has developed out of the conflict between conservation and restoration in the nineteenth century. Over time, the focus and balance within a value system evolved according to the prevailing point of view of research and society. The late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries emphasised on the contrasting position of historic value and age value. While this focus shifted towards the end of the century to the uses and benefits of monuments (use and non-use value), the early twenty-first century saw a preference for the pluralism of values. As a result, the assessment of built heritage has evolved from an assessment of individual buildings based on materials to a contextual assessment that allows for the inclusion of different aspects and perceptions of heritage, including intangible values such as socio-cultural or even economic concerns. Alois Riegl’s ‘The Modern Cult of the Monument: Its Character and Its Origin’ provided a theoretical foundation that contributed to the scientific nature of heritage conservation. Originally published in 1903, the translations of the 1980s reached a wider readership, and recent years have seen a veritable revival of the axiology. Conceptually, Riegl made a distinction between the perception of historic buildings by the observer in the past and in the present. The axiology distinguished between past values - age, historical and intentional commemorative value - and present values - use, relative art and newness value. Riegl’s text, originally written as a preface for a draft law, serves as a basic reference work for this thesis. The recognition of our built environment as a cultural asset worthy of protection has stimulated corresponding legislation. In Belgian legislation, heritage values have gradually been added to reflect the growing diversity of the recognised built heritage. With 13 distinct value criteria in the Flemish Onroerenderfgoeddecreet (OED) and 11 ‘interests’ in the Code Wallon du Patrimoine (CoPat), the Belgian system more diverse than those of other European countries. The historical development of the implementation of value criteria in the Flemish and the Walloon legislation alongside the international context allows an understanding of the current situation, its challenges and opportunities, especially considering an application of values for the adaptive reuse process. The advantage of using heritage values is their flexibility. They can reflect both tangible and intangible aspects and are therefore particularly suitable as a basis for interdisciplinary discourse. On the downside, their openness to interpretation leads to challenges in terms of transparency, effectiveness and practical implementation of the protection process. The comparison of the Flemish to the Walloon legislation has shown that the diversity of values requires definition and differentiation and constant review for relevance. In the current legislative framework and expert-led process, the benefits of values are not utilised. Further, the static protection process does not reflect the dynamic perspective of practical implementation. Reusing existing buildings offers the opportunity to preserve heritage values alongside the creation of new value through necessary architectural interventions. This sparks a discussion about the meaning of values, their practical preservation and their translation into architectural qualities that users can experience. Examining the different phases of a reuse process provides an overview of how values influence this process, from assessing the heritage value to designing and executing the architectural vision. In architecture, the competition procedure is a tool for ensuring transparency and architectural quality by offering more choices and encouraging surprising results. Despite the critical aspects of the format (e.g. pre-selection of participants, the definition of evaluation criteria, the possible risk of misuse as a political instrument), it represents the core of competing for the most innovative design solution. The prevailing competition procedures in Flanders (e.g. ‘open oproep’) and in Wallonia, indicate a shift from the search for the best design solution to the search for the best partner for a collaborative design process. Particularly in the case of public buildings, the process that may modify and accommodate future changes and value dynamics becomes more important that a completed project. However, this contradicts the concept of designing a building as a holistic unit of functions, materials and meanings. The architectural design process relies on implicit and explicit knowledge of the designer. Despite the dependence on value-based decisions, values are rarely expressed during the process. A contributing factor is the way the design process itself operates. Although generally linear, the individual phases are iterative between analysing, designing, evaluating and revising, and are essentially solution-oriented. This parallels the differences in the way researchers and designers work. The former focuses on the problem, the latter on the solution. The heritage values defined in the context of assessing the significance of a building serve to inform and inspire the designer in the design process and can provide entry points for design interventions. However, the research shows that the architectural design starts with the building’s spatial qualities, which heritage values rarely reflect. The building should therefore be included in the list of stakeholders in order to assess the potential it offers and balance it with the intentions of all other stakeholders involved. In order to bridge the research gap between value assessment, value maintenance and value creation, the following framework and objectives have been established: theoretical framework - potential; legal framework - boundaries; practical framework - reality; and design framework - intention, to achieve the transition from potential to intention in the adaptive reuse process. The individual frameworks helped to examine the necessary link between value attribution and the decision-making process in relation to the building fabric. Design-led research explores and assesses more options for how the existing or new value is best experienced. It further underlines the importance of the apparent lack of recognition of experiential values alongside the documentary values of a building. Most importantly, it shows how the prioritisation of aspects has an impact on the building situation and conditions future decisions. In the process, the ‘problem-solution’ space that designers create for themselves is constantly expanded and restricted in order to achieve an optimal result. Developing further questions helps to ‘read’ the context holistically, but also to ‘frame’ and ‘redefine’ the original problem statement. Aesthetic qualities (in Riegl’s words: relative art-value and newness value) influence the atmosphere of an object and play a major role in the perception of a building today. However, it is the spatial qualities of a building that make it sustainable once it has been reused. Building on the existing architectural logic, spatial qualities need to be created that are sufficient for the current use, but still allow for development, new adaptations and further adaptive reuse.