Zuzanna Murzyn
Urban Architecture
Brutally Honest: Research and Design Project of adaptive reuse and socio-architectural rehabilitation of Atlas Tower in Liège, Belgium.
Unappreciated by the public and ambiguous with its history, Brutalism has its followers among designers and architects yet it is still a stylistic outcast. La tour de Droixhe, the high-rise at hand, is thus seen not only as heritage but also as a lonely giant towering over the city of Liège, Belgium. This brutalist social housing development presents itself as an example of many other similar cases across Europe where brutalist buildings are met with discontent from the public and growing mismanagement. They often face certain demolition, which is why this project explored both within the design and the programme why should we save ugly buildings and how to change their fate. Taking on the original message of Brutalism as an ethical approach, the project brings in the possibilities of enhancing social cohesion in the case of high-rise housing. Resolving the challenges that living off-the-ground creates by designing clusters within the tower based on the premise of cooperative living, thereby humanising Brutalism and reclaiming its aesthetics as unique and worth building on and upon.