Tanishka Sarma
Heritage and Architecture
Mediating Religious Elements: Collective memory of religious objects for Transformation of decommissioned churches
This project explores the utilisation of the collective memory of vacant churches as incentives for their transformation and reuse. The number of decommissioned churches in the Netherlands is increasing with rapid secularisation, and many churches remain empty. The purpose of this project is to find a method to connect the collective memory within a church and use it for the church’s redesign. This study focused on one such decommissioned church for the theoretical application of the methodology, the Saint Augustinus Church in Amsterdam Noord, which has been empty since 2014. The design output focuses on the transformation of the church into a communal space with a focus on participatory design from its inception to its execution and the creation of social capital.