Landscape-Based Transformation of Young Industrial Landscapes

Due to deindustrialisation, young industrial landscapes (YILs), stemming roughly from the 1930s to the 1970s and located in the suburbs of Copenhagen, are partly abandoned, partly in use, and partly used for non-industrial purposes. By virtue of their location, size, and unused and underused subareas, YILs can potentially meet major urbanisation aims, such as densification and mixed-use development, yet the redevelopment of YILs often happens from a hypothetical virgin land position, disregarding the existing features of these sites. In this paper, we aim to introduce value-sustaining strategies for a more site-informed transformation of YILs. The specific objective is to investigate and understand the landscape-based transformation of young industrial landscapes by making explicit use of their site features in what we label the landscape. Based on a literature study of the emerging phenomenon, a screening of landscape-based projects and a case study, we present a set of qualifying strategies to guide future landscape-based transformations: porosity, reuse, re-naturing, and open-endedness. The complimentary spatial, multi-scalar, and temporal strategies were demonstrated through the study of the five European cases: Alter Flugplatz Kalbach, Hersted Industripark, IBA Emscher Park, Louvre Lens Museum Park, and Parc aux Angeliques, to exemplify how the strategies could guide the landscape-based transformation of YILs or similar types of large-scale landscapes. Although apparently straight forward, the formulation of the four strategies linking ethics and transformation practices provides a much needed set of values and tools in the current, and also historical, redevelopment of YILs, which are a significant part of our urbanised landscapes, to better address societal challenges.