Framing Renovation - e-flux

Editors Nick Axel, Matevž Čelik, Nikolaus Hirsch, Mateja Kurir, Nuša Zupanc

Contributors Ana Dana Beroš, Mika Savela, Olaf Grawert, Arno Brandlhuber, Ludwig Engel, Alina Kolar, Mo Michelsen Stochholm Krag, Future Foodscapes Research Unit, Rocio Calzado, Nicole Kalms, and more…

Any process of renovation is forced to reckon and engage with the history, the context, and the stories of a place. As such, renovation ultimately has the potential to transcend the material and operate metaphysically, through meaning, purpose, and identity. While demolition and new construction pushes the past into the realm of oblivion, renovation not only acknowledges the value and weight of what came before, but also has the potential to change it.

Framing Renovation is a collaboration between e-flux Architecture and the Faculty of Architecture of the University of Ljubljana within the context of the 2023–24 and 2024–25 LINA Architecture Programs.

View Grid

View List

21 essays

Grafting Oases into the Grid

Giulio Galasso and Natalia Voroshilova

Twenty-five years after the end of the war, more than 70 percent of Milan’s urban fabric was new.

Forced Reuse: Rethinking Building Conventions Through Crises

Leonid Slonimskiy, Artem Kitaev, and Gili Merin

Forced reuse is an opportunity to eliminate the dichotomy between temporary and permanent within architecture by focusing on adaptivity, flexibility, and responsivity.

Turn Again, Avicenna

Wael Al Awar and Rafał Śliwa

Preservation as it is conventionally understood is not the only way of observing and experiencing the past in some form, and applying it as a one-size-fits-all approach occludes and even jeopardizes the continuous traditions of a specific place.

Between Line and Zone: The Shore

Diana Berecz

Lake Balaton, the largest lake in Central Europe, stands on the edge of a critical tipping point. Its landscape, once shaped by natural hydrological rhythms and semi-wild ecological processes, has been progressively stabilized—contained by hard infrastructure, fragmented regulation, and intensifying development.

The Building Tells Us What It Needs

Caitlin DeSilvey with Vanessa Ruhlig

In places where structural integrity is being disrupted by ecological complexity, the concept of “adaptive release” offers an alternative to (and an extension of) existing practices of “adaptive reuse.”

The Right to Ruins

Adam Przywara

Assessing and quantifying the alien landscape of destruction became one of the first tasks of BOS (Biuro Odbudowy Stolicy, or Warsaw Reconstruction Office), a central architecture and planning office established in February 1945 by the new Stalin-backed government of Poland.

Editorial: Redefining the Boundaries

Matevž Čelik, Mateja Kurir, and e-flux Architecture

No longer merely a means of preserving historic buildings, renovation now stands as a fundamental challenge to the logic of erasure and replacement that has dominated the construction industry for over a century.

Staying With the Place

Robida

The renovation of rural, abandoned villages does not need to entail a radical, metamorphic transformation of their functions and physical configuration. Rather, it can take place through a slow, continuous practice of inhabitation.

One Size Does Not Fit All

Katrina Wiberg

The speed and magnitude of rising sea levels are the cause of considerable levels of uncertainty and flood risk in coastal communities. Approximately 10% of Earth's population live in coastal areas less than ten meters above relative sea level, and 40% live within 100 kilometers of the coast. Denmark has followed global trends in concentrating new urban development in low-lying former wetlands and land that has been reclaimed from the sea, both of which are flood risk zones.

Scaffolding the Commons

Merve Bedir

The former British Post Office building in Istanbul came into our lives during the Covid pandemic. Or, perhaps more accurately, that is when we walked into its life. It was the first post office that the British built beyond the borders of their empire.

Architectural Profanations

Alessandro Petti and Sandi Hilal

Nick Axel: Your recent work in Italy looks at renovation beyond the material condition, towards a more historical, political, and almost metaphysical ...

Undoing Inclusion

Nicole Kalms

For many practitioners, “inclusive” and “gender neutral” design is viewed as the “gold standard” for public placemaking. However, these approaches can paradoxically negatively impact many people, and can have particular concerning consequences for women and girls in cities.

A Political Taxonomy of Corviale

Rocio Calzado

The environmental crisis adds a layer of complexity to the development and management of public housing in the city. To address this complexity, it is crucial to explore new ways of transforming existing housing stock and reducing demolition waste.

Notes On Culinary Geoengineering

Future Foodscapes Research Unit

Think about your last meal. Visualize its ingredients, colors, and flavors. Now, try to think about how it ended up on your plate; what sort of spaces it passed through, what kinds of architecture and infrastructure were involved in such a journey. Let’s begin at the everyday laboratory that is your kitchen, where your meal has likely been assembled from tiny cans, containers, and packages.

Opening Rural Futures

Mo Michelsen Stochholm Krag

There is a strong, albeit latent, relationship between the local identities of village communities, collective memories of place, and abandoned buildings. The potential for renovation in these rural villages is not so much about restoring derelict buildings to their original state, but rather rebuilding community cohesion through their transformation.

HouseEurope!

Olaf Grawert, Arno Brandlhuber, Ludwig Engel, and Alina Kolar

Do you rent an apartment or own a building? Are you involved in the building sector? Are you concerned about the environment? Well, you should be.

The Future Resides in What We Already Have

Ana Dana Beroš and Mika Savela

Not all old factories can become cultural foundations; not all white sanatoriums in pine forests have the spotlight of contemporary design shining over them. Most of the built environment, even some the sleekest of modernist monuments, must seek other ways to survive.

Editorial

Matevž Čelik, Mateja Kurir, Nuša Zupanc, and e-flux Architecture

Framing Renovation is a collaboration between e-flux Architecture and the Faculty of Architecture of the University of Ljubljana within the context of the 2023–24 LINA Architecture Program.

Subject

Architecture, Landscape, Climate change, Community, Memory, Energy

Contributors

Miloš Kosec Sustainable Conflicts: Heritage as an Infrastructure of Self-reflection
Maria Helena Luiga Renovating the Building Process: Towards a Local-Tech Approach
Maria Kremer and Maria Gunko Homeing in Yerevan
Giulio Galasso and Natalia Voroshilova Grafting Oases into the Grid
Leonid Slonimskiy and Gili Merin Forced Reuse: Rethinking Building Conventions Through Crises
Wael Al Awar and Rafał Śliwa Turn Again, Avicenna
Diana Berecz Between Line and Zone: The Shore
Caitlin DeSilvey with Vanessa Ruhlig The Building Tells Us What It Needs
Adam Przywara The Right to Ruins
Matevž Čelik and e-flux Architecture Editorial: Redefining the Boundaries
Robida Staying With the Place
Katrina Wiberg One Size Does Not Fit All
Merve Bedir Scaffolding the Commons
Alessandro Petti and Sandi Hilal Architectural Profanations
Nicole Kalms Undoing Inclusion
Rocio Calzado A Political Taxonomy of Corviale
Future Foodscapes Research Unit Notes On Culinary Geoengineering
Mo Michelsen Stochholm Krag Opening Rural Futures
Olaf Grawert, Arno Brandlhuber and Alina Kolar HouseEurope!
Ana Dana Beroš and Mika Savela The Future Resides in What We Already Have
Matevž Čelik, Mateja Kurir and e-flux Architecture Editorial

Category

Subject