Gardens of Dialectics

Abstract

The graduation work aims to raise a discussion around the future of post-industrial urban centers and communities. A counter-project that, through a critique of conventional urban planning methods, wants to re-imagine the future of those small towns that are facing an economic and demographic crisis caused by the ending of industrial activities. The Belgian village of Waterschei is taken as a context. It was designed and built as a perfect example of company Company Town for the workers of the coal industry. At the time, urban politics dealt with the problem of the growth of industrial cities through the dispersion of individual laborers in the green landscape of newly built garden suburbs, where communal and personal life could be easily controlled and rationalized. Today, Waterschei is facing deindustrialization, decay, and the demolition of its urban structure. Life of the community happens mainly within the fences that surround private gardens while the population is excluded by the large urban redevelopment projects, usually more interested in re-generating economic growth than a sense of community. The thesis proposes an operative methodology, through which the practice of architecture can offer the re-construction of communal life within the dissolution of the urban fabric, and a restored dialogue with nature.