This postdoctoral research focuses on the reinterpretation of heritage, not just as a witness of the past but also as a source for contemporary architecture and interiors, and as a catalyst for regeneration. The complexity and specificity of the practice of adaptive reuse makes it a discipline in its own right, intersecting architecture, interior design, planning, engineering, and conservation. Its body of theory is in its infancy. The theory of adaptive reuse has been caught between two rather general questions related to individual buildings: which function is suitable for specific building typologies and how to create an aesthetical relationship between the old and the new. However, the core issue related to adaptive reuse exceeds the individual building and tackles the more fundamental approach: how to transmit the legacy of the past, which includes the physical heritage, narratives, traditions, and values, to the future in a manner that reactivates and engages with them in building a future. The goal of this research is to formulate strategies on how to conserve and intervene in the existing built fabric in an integer and meaningful way.

The findings have been published in the book ‘Adaptive Reuse of the Built Heritage: Concepts and Cases of an Emerging Discipline’ (Routledge 2019). Bie Plevoets current research, REUSING THE RUIN, elaborates on the physical and conceptual notion of ruins. On the one hand, the ruin is approached as an object which reuse and adaptation is particularly challenging given the fragmentary nature of the fabric. On the other hand, the notion of the ruin has throughout history also been used as a metaphor to describe man’s relationship with the past, the historic built environment and natural landscape and to reflect upon the evolution of society. The goal of the project is twofold: (1) to formulate architectural strategies for adaptive reuse of ruin, and (2) to reuse and reactivate the metaphorical potential of the ruin as a concept to describe the shift in meaning that may be generated through adaptive reuse, and in more general terms man’s relationship with the past, the historic built environment and natural landscape. The research draws on the combination of research methods from different disciplines: literature study, iconography of ruins and representation of ruins, study of precedents, and research by design.