Open Call: Commoning the Heritage

How can the inherited environment become a living part of the future? The Open Call ‘Commoning the Heritage’ in Robertsfors, explores and tests methods for how cultural heritage sites can be managed and strengthened long-term in collaboration with the local community. The call is a part of ArkDes’ practise-based research initiative 2023.

These shared cultural environments, which carry both history and identity, play an important role as society develops and expands. When new needs for meeting places arise, existing buildings can gain new value. Cultural heritage offers an anchoring in history, representing a legacy that new developments can relate to and eventually become part of.

The call investigates methods to preserve and strengthen the shared cultural environment over time. The focus of the project is a culturally and historically significant economic building made of slag brick in Robertsfors, built in the 1860s, which once belonged to the industrial complex. Currently located on the outskirts of the town center, its position gains new potential as an important hub in the community structure with the new train station and planned area development. To best utilize the building and its potential, strategies, methods, and design proposals are needed to demonstrate how it can gradually become a vibrant public space that enhances the existing values of the location and town. How can the building and site become a resource in community development?

A team is tasked with developing a plan for the building’s development, as well as a method to manage it in a way that maintains its cultural and historical values while allowing its use to evolve over time to benefit local stakeholders and the public. The task also includes activating the building, thereby initiating the process of the proposed development.