Julie Litnhouvong

This project is a part of common master plan that requisitions the relationship between the University of Liège and the City. Since 150 years; it has grown haphazardly without a long-term strategy. To respond to its extension, our intention is to combine the departments of social sciences in the center, where new public facilities and transportation are being developed. In prospect to 2050, three departments have been projected to be removed from the city center, including the Faculty of Architectures, which in actuality is split in three different areas in Liège.

Why build outside the cities while buildings fall into pending occupation in the center? An investigative work took an interest on forgotten spaces in order to put into value on a zone perceived as urban wasteland. Our main propose aims to rehabilitate these buildings to (re)generate a dynamic area through the university’s impulsion.

This project is based on this wide reflection. It aims to rehabilitate the ‘Innovation building’ designed by Jean Poskin- Henri Bonhomme in the 70s, which can be considered as a testimony and evidence of the functionalism period. Previously it used to be a landmark but is at the moment unused. This urban situation combines obvious practical and symbolic interests to the Faculty of Architecture. The idea is to exploit the characteristics of the original building: its location downtown, its flexible floor plans and the rhythm of the facades.

Moreover, the act of rehabilitation has opened questions about the current requirements of thermal insulation and daylight. The interior disposition consists of several thermal bubbles in the programmatic nested one inside the other. This principle of thermal decomposition becomes the principle of architectural composition.

Although this project is case based on a specific site and program, it questions the preservation and renovation of local heritage by satisfying the actual built standards.

 

---

SCHUNCK cannot guarantee the correctness of content and expression. The participants themselves are responsible for their entries. The copyright of the projects underlies to the authors, any reproduction or use of the shown material is strictly forbidden.