The Haraldsgadekvarteret, located in Copenhagen, is a neighborhood that suffers from fragmentation due to the way its set up. This project aims to mitigate that, by creating a building consisting of different volumes that are based on physical characteristics of pieces of urban fabric in the neighborhood. This makes the building identifiable for the residents in the neighborhood. Unlike the neighborhood however, these different volumes are connected due to the functional nature of the spaces in between them. For these connections, both between the volumes and on a functional level within the volumes, the notion of indeterminacy is used as a tool to design these spaces, becoming a vehicle for many important aspects of the building, like hybridity, occupancy and sustainability.

The re-purposing of cultural heritage is becoming more and more prominent. Often, cultural heritage objects hold (great) value, making working with them a difficult task. Therefore, in order to complete these types of projects successfully, a clear overview over what is important has to be present. A way to do this is to document the most important values about the heritage and architecture in general, allowing decisions to be soundly backed. This thesis aims to create a model for this based on a model originating from previous research by answering the following question: to what degree is the model presented by Mazumdar & Mazumdar (1994) applicable to the re-purposing of cultural heritage? First, the connection between societal values and architecture is established, showing clear signs of a relationship between the two. Next, carefully formulated heritage values and legislative documents will be discussed, where the importance of considering the “cultural significance” is explained. Cultural significance can be defined as everything that makes the cultural heritage object in question valuable, ideally defined by both experts and the public. To answer the research question, the original model is tested against the re-purposing and refurbishment of State Library Victoria in Melbourne, revealing that while technically applicable, the original model needs to be expanded for the important values at play when re-purposing cultural heritage to be clearly documented. The term “societal values” is too broad to both describe the cultural significance and general values about architecture. Therefore, cultural significance is introduced in the model, comprised of expert assessment and communal heritage values. This changed model is presented, and allows anyone working on such projects to create a map with a clear overview of the important values.