Ellen Raes
Closure of the mines resulted in a cultural response of denial. This is visible in the landscape by the brutal juxtaposition of fragmented spaces.
The design tackles this fragmentation by re-framing the edges. It does not want to restore a reality that has disappeared but transform it from a "waste-landscape" by growing it from a place of extraction into a place of production. By reconnecting the fragmented local conditions, the design is not an invented utopia, but rather a rooting environment for grafting the place back into the language from which it was built.
It is not about creating plans, but trying to dematerialise the artificial environment in order to create an inhabitable landscape that provides opportunities for its inhabitants. To achieve the transformation, small-scale interventions will be developed.
Single function places with impenetrable boundaries will develop into wider spaces that allow synergetic systems to take place.
