Adaptive reuse of an abandoned rurality: reclaiming lost identities of the past.

Since the early preservationists launched their concepts on preservation and hence, formed the basis of modern restoration in the 18th century, the field has been occupied with prolonging, upholding,
and restoring, in theory as well as in practice. In contrast to classic restoration, this paper reports on a series of alternative and more dynamic preservation-prototypes developed and tested as radical preservation of abandoned buildings undertaken at full scale through a subtractive architectural practice. At first the radical preservation practice was initiated in various rural villages, aiming at temporary preservation strategies for the challenged and unrecognized rural built environment
with emphasis on engagement with the local village communities. The intention was to adapt and re-activate obsolete buildings as material anchorage points of intrinsic immaterial values such as personal memories of place. On the larger scale, the idea was to contribute to the rebuilding of the community cohesion within the depopulating rural villages from which new local identities then
could emerge. One of the prototypes was implemented in 2014 in the form of a neatly curated partial demolition. Since then, the natural decay processes have stimulated interaction with the surrounding village community on a regular basis, as the community itself chose to re-occupy the place in 2015. The latest of the preservation-prototypes, still in its early stages, revolves around the on-going transformation of the entirety of a depopulating station town. In this case, the aim is to engage rural abandonment at a larger scale, as eradicated town and village centers bear witness of the impact of the government infused demolition projects in the form of scatteredness and dilution. Another crucial benefit that is to be gained by expanding the field-lab from a single building to the
entirety of a station town is the involvement and feed-back from the local community. The station town project combines a governmental afforestation plan with redirected government funds for strategic demolitions. The afforestation takes place by expanding an existing forest south of the town-center into the depopulated parts of town. The forest is emerging into the emptied lots of abandoned
buildings gradually, whereas the abandoned buildings themselves are reduced to controlled ruins through a subtractive architectural practice embedded in the machinery of the strategic demolitions. Remaining fruit trees and hedges originating from the abandoned gardens play an important role as they, while they dissolve, interweave the curated ruins, they originate from, with the forest. The
abandoned buildings themselves, now in the form of controlled ruins, maintain clearings in the emerging forest. They are in nature of things self-programmed and will adapt to constitute culture-historical meeting points that catalyst exchange of memories among the local residents and hence, preserve the buildings immaterially as a strengthened collective memory while their physical presence
slowly but surely decreases.