The researchers involved in the Scientific Research Network Read.Adapt.Reuse share an interest in exploring innovative methods for reading and interpreting the cultural layers of the built environment and activating tangible and intangible traces of the past. Given that the built environment is an interdisciplinary field, an innovative and integrated approach to reading and transforming the ‘as found’ – the existing architectural fabric – is needed. This requires the involvement of a critical number of researchers from various disciplines, including architectural design and theory, interior architecture, construction history, material culture, heritage conservation, landscape architecture, and urban design.

By bringing researchers together, we aim to exchange and borrow perspectives, findings, and concepts, which would enable synergies and create added value for each discipline involved. Furthermore, coordinated integrations would facilitate innovative methods and facilitate a better connection between reading and interpreting the cultural layers of the built environment.

The interdisciplinary collaboration in this network allows for the achievement of the following scientific goals: 

1. to map, advance, develop, and evaluate innovative and integrated approaches and methods to read and interpret the cultural layers of the ‘as found’ and
2. to implement these interpretations in adaptive reuse projects, with the overall aim to promote a holistic, culturally sustainable approach to the built environment.

The two-fold scientific goal is translated into three research questions (RQ):

• (RQ1) Which existing methods used to read the ‘as found’ through a cultural lens allow for fruitful synergies to be explored?
• (RQ2) How can these existing methods be enhanced, and new approaches be developed from a multidisciplinary perspective?
• (RQ3) What is the added value of these new and improved methods in steering a more cultural approach to reading and transforming the built environment?

For more information, please visit www.uhasselt.be/asfoundnetwork or contact asfound.network@uhasselt.be  or Stephanie Van de Voorde (as spokesperson VUB).