To redirect the process of building and city-making toward a more sustainable future, Muck Petzet proposes a radical shift: the priority of reuse over new development. Before inventing something entirely new, we should look to discover and redevelop the potential of existing physical, architectural, historic and social resources. In decisions about demolition or reuse, all these opportunities have to be taken into account in a holistic lifecycle assessment.

Within a growing and developing world society, our need for new dwellings and cities is indisputable. However, these buildings should be conceived in a way that both complements and contributes to existing elements. If one looks closely enough, there is always some latent potential for rediscovery. The tabula rasa is a myth – a false promise artificially constructed by erasing valuable heritage. As the often shrinking post-industrial societies of highly developed countries have already overspent on resources and embodied energy, our second chance is not renewal or replacement but improvement of the existing.
Radical reuse enriches new developments with layers and traces of history, providing identity and authenticity to the otherwise replicable ‘new’. The radical reuse pop-up pavilion conceived by Muck Petzet for UABB highlights the potentials of radical reuse and demonstrates its implementation in practice by showing different strategies and their application in the work of his office Muck Petzet Architekten.

(catalogue UABB 2015)

website: en.szhkbiennale.org