HETEROTOPIA

When applying the concept of the heterotopia to industrial ruins, several key points of perspective emerge through which such sites can be viewed: Contradiction and Layering, Cultural and Temporal heterogeneity, Crisis or Deviation and Spaces of Illusion and Compensation.
 
Industrial ruins are fundamentally contradictory spaces; once symbols of modernity and progress, these sites are now abandoned, often in decay, and stand as reminders of a bygone era of industry, now juxtaposed against a modern landscape that may have moved on from heavy industry to more service-oriented or digital economies (or which might be simply abandoned, without there being any redevelopment, such as the mines and refineries in the Jiu Valley of Romania).  This layering of the past and present makes them prime examples of heterotopias, as they encapsulate different times within the same space and carry the remnants of their original utility while also serving new, often informal or unintended purposes. Post-communist industrial ruins might also serve as sites that create a space of illusion – a world apart that is disinherited from the contemporary and might compensate by providing a space for activities that no longer fit into structured societal norms. The spatial delimitations of these zones also fit within Vidler's five principles of heterotopology: "They have a system of opening and closure which isolates them in relation to the surrounding space” as not only are the sites often enclosed and physically bound by walls or fences, even open spaces "have the property of keeping you on the outside" (Vidler et al., 2014, p.22).

By being liminal or cognitively hermetic, their histories and intended functions are unknown or have become aberrant if not forgotten. Such spaces disturb the narratives of progress and continuity that often dominate urban development discourse, instead offering a mosaic of decay and regeneration, past uses and present reimaginings, thereby transforming and challenging perceptions of space and history. Industrial wastelands comprise heterotopias that encapsulate complex layers of contradiction and history, presenting physical and metaphorical crossroads, where imaginaries of the past interact with visions and re-imaginings of the future.

Viewed through this lens, it becomes evident that such sites can challenge dominant linear societal narratives and hold the potential to offer unique insights into intertwined temporal, cultural, and economic complexities. In essence, these hetero-topologies are rarely tidy and linear, therefore the aforementioned cultural practices they are being approached with (the presumptive future of digital imagery) should not follow linearly ordered paths and methods either. 

The missing link between the immersive but ultimately content-sterile interaction of physically experiencing, documenting and analysing them, on  the one hand, and intervention-heavy architectural approaches,  on the other, can be found in design-driven representation and spatial practices. Design can be a vector for translating these aestheticising practices previously mentioned into more community-viable action. In this case, however, design is to be understood as a dynamic process whose first act is represented by the inscription of intention through drawings (Paans & Pasel, 2018, p.2) that capture and translate the heterotopic nature of the problem to be addressed. 

Employing hybrid and multimedia architectural representation and design methods, in this case predominantly film and overlayed hand sketches, transports the phenomeonographic research from a discursive (Barnard et al., 1999) to a generative practice (Ballestrem & Gasperoni, 2023).  In practical terms, this was achieved in two stages: by walking and filming, and then drawing and designing ‘onto’ the filmed scenes.

Video documentation of the design thinking process allows the exploration of the spaces between the abstract thought and the final representation of a design solution.

INTEGRATING HAND DRAWN VIGNETTES IN ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN METHODOLOGIES

 

The central theme of this exposition is to illustrate how the ur-tool of designers, the hand drawing, can be used to forge design methodologies for design briefs within heterotopic spaces such as industrial ruins.

 

Architecture tasks (the reuse of dilapidated structures, for instance) can be viewed as ‘wicked problems’(Prominski & Seggern, 2019) – problems which have no clear starting point, precise formulation, and no stopping rule. 

 

While hand drawing has been used as an incipient tool when tackling design issues, its relevance has waned in architectural practice, and the representational sketch has been replaced by digital images. These aim to show hyperreal potential simulacra of the finished thing – a functional building, idealised and static within an immovable environment. Nothing can be further from reality, however, because cities and buildings are in a perpetual state of flux, change, decay and transformation.

 

The object is never finished – why should its representation (and its creation) be?

 

 

Brieftopia

 

suggests a departure from conventional architectural practice fixated on immovable artefacts towards an immersive and malleable set of methodologies that suggest how architecture can become and transform within its pulsating contextual conditions.

 

 

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Hetero - to Brieftopia -  A Visual Research Methodology

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Employing hybrid and multimedia architectural representation and design methods, in this case predominantly film and overlayed hand sketches, transports the phenomeonographic research from a discursive (Barnard et al., 1999) to a generative practice (Ballestrem & Gasperoni, 2023). 

 

In practical terms, this was achieved in two stages: by walking and filming, and then drawing and designing ‘onto’ the filmed scenes.


Video documentation of the design thinking process allows the exploration of the spaces between the abstract thought and the final representation of a design solution.

Context of Research 

Methods and Methodology

Agents and Bodies