Cradle to Church - A Sustainable Response on Religious Heritage

Abstract

Cradle to Church is a project that explores the possibilities of circular heritage as a way of approaching the topic of sustainability for the future of heritage. Focusing on the revitalizing of the Jacobuskerk in Winterswijk, the project forms of a sustainable response on the increasing vacancy rates of Catholic churches through integrating the concept of Cradle to Cradle. Vacancy rates are an ongoing problem on a large scale and include highly valued and important building typologies for the development of our history, such as religious objects like Catholic churches. Such heritage has an influential position in the communication of the building environment with society, which is valuable to be maintained. This influential position offers possibilities for other relevant topics to be communicated in addition. The agenda of sustainability is a topic that architects are increasingly taking responsibility in, as the ecological problems and the influence of the current building environment for the future is clear. The revitalization of vacant buildings is important for a sustainable future building environment as vacant buildings form a sensitive part of the aspects that make our current building environment unsustainable. This unique position of heritage therefore forms a relevant sector for architects to respond on. Currently the potentials of sustainability in heritage are mostly understood to essentially lie in the extension of the lifetime of a building retaining the important and valued character of the building. But can it be more? In terms of circular economy an object of heritage and the values it features are initially not at all designed to be circular. Initially designed with specific status and values or gained over time, these objects are designed to become waste eventually. The postponing of becoming waste by the extension of the lifetime is typically considered as a less-bad approach of dealing with sustainability as it is not solving the source of the ecological problem but merely delaying and minimizing the effect. This graduation project focuses on the question if heritage being an existing cradle to grave product can form a solution to the root of the ecological problem, as according the concept of Cradle to Cradle this solution would essentially rely on a new way of designing. Since heritage is designed as linear product in a significantly less advanced linear economical system that is eco-effective and less bad at best, can it become a circular and eco-efficient cradle to cradle product in a building environment, economy and society slowly but surely shifting towards a circular model? Or is less bad the maximal sustainable potential reachable in heritage? In response to this question Cradle to Church approached the Jacobuskerk in Winterswijk as an education center through the formation of a set of interventions that translate the circular principles as proposed by the concept of Cradle to Cradle into the existing framework of values that compose the monumental character of the Jacobuskerk. Through the interventions and the circular statements behind them, this project aims to form a reference for the typology of Catholic churches and other objects of heritage. Furthermore, the project hopes to form a point of discussion regarding the exclusive position of Heritage in the formation of a sustainable future building environment.