The ReFact student workshop held in October 2023, explored the conservation of industrial heritage with an emphasis on positioning the sustainable development goals at the service of community within a conservation-led brief.
The site chosen for the workshop was an old mill and tannery complex beside the town of Portlaw, County Waterford, South East Ireland. The background work on the site had been prepared by the SETU students in the weeks preceding the workshop and this information, comprising building and site surveys, landscape character assessments and building conservation requirements, formed a common basis for the work of the groups. There were eight groups and four exploratory themes: Site and Buildings, Site and Nature, Site and Town and Site and Region.
The workshop partners consist of ENSA Nancy, HTW Saar, Universidad de Sevilla, Università degli Studi di Firenze, Brno University of Technology and SETU Waterford, together with the support of and input from Waterford City and County Council. The SETU students were joined by their counterparts from Nancy, Saarbruecken and Brno.
The workshop began with a guided site visit and culminated with the presentation of the groups’ work to the workshop participants and guest critics, including the Waterford City Architect. A follow-up presentation as part of the blended learning content was held approximately six weeks later to which the workshop participants were invited. The SETU students, who had continued working on the site and brief as their semester studio project presented their projects to the workshop for comment and feedback.
The ReFact project was funded by HCI and Erasmus+BIP along with contributions from the Department of Architecture and the Built Environment, SETU.
