Title

Author(s)

Monica Tușinean

Affiliation

IRGE Universität Stuttgart

DOI

https://doi.org/10.65686/PYCD7231

Keywords

Design-Driven Research, Industrial Ruins, Urban Ethnography

PP

966-973

How to Cite

Tușinean, Monica. “Beyond Taxonomy: Adaptive Reuse Phenomenographies Design Driven Research on the Reanimation of Post-Communist Industrial Ruins.” In Proceedings of the International Conference on Adaptive Reuse. Volume 1, edited by Andrea Crudeli, Francesca Molle, and Emanuele Carrai, 966–973. Firenze: STH Press, 2026.

Abstract

This research examines adaptive reuse within the contested terrain of post-communist industrial ruins in Romania, where heritage discourses have long overlooked production and labour-related architecture. Drawing on phenomenographic methodologies and situated design practices, the work proposes a critical and creative engagement with derelict industrial sites, reframing them not as static relics but as heterotopias—spaces of deviation imbued with complex social, political, and spatial entanglements. In response to cultural amnesia and speculative real estate pressures, the study advocates “protection through transformation,” in which adaptive reuse serves as a mode of cultural resistance and collective memory preservation. The approach diverges from conventional documentation or musealisation strategies by employing hybrid visual tools—hand drawings, video vignettes, and spatial interventions—that embrace the ambiguity and “dirty concepts” inherent in these fragile contexts. Two primary self-authored case studies, set in the Transylvanian city of Sibiu, serve as design laboratories, revealing how architectural acts of drawing, walking, and filming can produce epistemic artefacts and catalyse community re-engagement. Rather than seeking formal completion, these interventions operate within temporal and spatial voids, generating multi-scalar responses that resist reductive binaries such as old/new or use/disuse. The research contributes a methodology that positions adaptive reuse as an iterative, phenomenographic process, one that transcends taxonomic representation and disrupts prevailing preservationist narratives, while remaining deeply attentive to site specificity, historical trauma, and the evolving materialities of ruin. By merging design, history, and critical theory, this work expands the possibilities of architectural reuse, not as nostalgic reclamation or typological analysis, but as a form of spatial justice that enables sustainable transformation of existing sites and buildings endangered by predatory and invasive building practices.

Edited by
Andrea Crudeli
Francesca Molle
Emanuele Carrai

Publisher
STH Press, Firenze

ISBN Paperback – 9791281661141
ISBN Ebook – 9791281661158
DOI – https://doi.org/10.65686/SISY7263

Year
2026

Proceedings of
International Conference on Adaptive Reuse
hosted by The University of Pisa, Italy
15-19 September 2025, at the Gispoteca di Arte Antica dell’Università di Pisa.