adaptive reuse of landscape heritage

Abstract

t seems that urban shrinkage has become a very 'normal' stage of urban development process in Europe. Starting in Germany during the late 1990s and early 2000s, and then slowly but surely spreading across most of Europe (Bontie and Musterd, 2012). Nearly half of Europe's cities home to one-third of the continent's population- are shrinking in one way or another. Shrinkage is a very diverse and complex process in urban development, but one of the most intuitive phenomena is structural population loss, constant and considerable. Whether the reason for shrinkage is deindustrialization or postwar politics, urban lifecycle is the spatial effect of economic circular development (Martinez-Fernandez at el, 2012).In a shrinking city or more generally, a shrinking area, social problems and economic problems are eventually affecting local residents' life, causing decrease in security, amenity, comfort, social vital ity, etc., reducing economic circulations and putting the future of the region into worrying uncertainty. Parkstad Limburg, in south part of Limburg Province in the Netherlands, has a long history, and experienced rapid urbanization and development in 20th century due to mining industry. However, after shutting down of mine sites, this region has been facing shrinkage even till now. Before Industrial Revolution, Parkstad has an agricultural-based history since Roman time; although urbanization and expansion reduced farming area significantly, there are still many heritages of ancient natural landscape and agricultural production existing in Parkstad. The unique hilly landscape being found nowhere else in the country also makes the region a really popular tourism destination for visitors from home and abroad. Currently Parkstad is undergoing economic restructuring in this post-mining period and it's looking forwarding to a sustainable regional economic development using its tourism resource which has great potential. Shrinkage has brought challenges as well as opportunities to Parkstad. In this post-industrial era, with the background condition of shrink age, how to promote economic circulation and social vibrancy using local material to trigger new types of spatial programming? This landscape architecture design project, taking Parkstad as an example, proposes reintroduction of agricultural landscape elements in order to reproduce the idyllic beauty and attract tourists. In small scale, a typical South Limburg farmhouse is transformed into a green care farm for the elderly with traditional agricultural elements such as high-stemmed orchard. How reintroduction of agricultural landscape elements can improve attract tourism and investment in a regional scale is also explained. This project is hoped to explore how adaptive reuse of landscape heritage especially agricultural heritage can improve living quality, boost economic activities, stimulate social vitality to present Parkstad with a regional development of positive circulation