Beursgebouw as social platform: Re-interpreting communal spirit of Beursgebouw

The graduation studio is called ‘Adapting 20c Heritage’, and the renovation assignment deals with young heritage in Almere city. Almere is a planned city in the south-west of the reclaimed province Flevoland, and my graduation project is about renovation of the Beursgebouw, which is the first office building in Almere Stad. The Beursgebouw has been the office for company Oranjewoud from the very start, and since 2005, it remained vacant until now.Based on findings of preliminary research and analysis, I started thinking about my own design assignment, and my focus point turned to the social value and communal spirit of the Beursgebouw. My ambition for the renovation is to make a new social platform where people from different generations and different groups come together and interact with each other, thus benefitting the Beursgebouw as well as the Almere city.Architecture, Urbanism and Building Science