Religious heritage protected

Abstract

This research is all about the seismic activity that threatens the province of Groningen. Recent developments according to this threat target mostly the safety issues of the inhabitants. This is of course a logical reaction to the imminent danger, but there is a topic that is in danger of being snowed under. The province has much to offer in the sense of historical and cultural heritage, in the form of old farms and churches. The subject of being safe in these kinds of monuments isn’t the only challenge. It can be said even that it is equally important to preserve the heritage, because it’s often a carrier of highly valuable knowledge in the sense of building technologies and cultural history. The problem of this challenge lays in the contradiction of the prevailing desire to keep a monument authentic, while earthquake-proof interventions often ask for rigorous interventions. Recently developed solutions are balancing on this contradiction, mainly because most of the interventions are initiated by heritage-minded institutions. The thing is that if you don’t allow rigorous actions, the heritage can be destroyed forever. This interesting contradiction has led me to the following overall design question I wanted to answer with my graduation process: How can the adaptive reuse of the church of Heveskes be done, in such a way that it is integrated within a temporary wooden structure that serves as a structural reinforcement in order to withstand seismic activity?