Controlled Ruins in the Forest”

Developed countries, globally, are experiencing severe demographic challenges, as their rural populations abandon the home villages and move into the cities. As part of this tendency, many rural villages in Denmark face abandonment and decay. Therefore, Danish government has initiated widespread strategic demolition projects. Nevertheless, these projects form a fast eradication of history, as the abandoned buildings still play a crucial role as anchorage points of the collective memory.

Building on a research by design project, implemented at full scale in a depopulating rural station town, this paper argues that the combination of a governmental afforestation plan and partial demolitions may lead to new directions in the field of radical preservation of abandoned houses.

In short, the afforestation will take place by expanding an old forest and interweave it into the depopulating south end of town. The new forest is to take over the emptied lots of abandoned buildings gradually in a pace responding to the actual depopulation, whereas the emptied buildings are reduced to controlled ruins through a subtractive architectural practice. The ruins constitute clearings and meeting points in the new forest and at the same time they catalyst exchange of memories of place among the local residents. In other words, the buildings, their history, and their bearing on the local identity is sought preserved immaterially as a strengthened collective memory specific to the surrounding community.

The project is formed by embedment in the local community and a decade of fulfilled collective pilot projects in collaboration with the municipality.