Ryhove Urban Factory

Koningsdal, Gent

After decades of gradual expansion, the sheltered workshop’s precincts have evolved into a tangled and inefficient conglomerate. Strings of sheds and offices have been built without any underlying master plan. Buildings show signs of decay. The company owns a decrepit production site in the middle of a residential area.

Two options remain: leave the site in favour of a brand new and efficient building in an industrial area on the city outskirts, or accept the challenge of re-organizing the existing site. The choice falls on the second option. Parts of the existing complex are demolished to make room for a new building. Its purpose: restructuring the site, organizing logistics and allocating supplementary office, parking and workshop space.

The site revolves around the loading and unloading area. Here, finished products – the fruits of labour – are picked up for delivery. This place, where goods come and go, is not hidden towards the back of the precincts. Instead, it is located in the very heart of the company. The building’s focal point coincides with an open space. Workplaces are rearranged and renovated so that they dovetail into the new organization. The site has been transformed into a well-functioning ensemble.

The building’s structural elements – prefabricated concrete columns and CLT panels – are pushed out to the perimeter, thus engaging them in an active dialogue with the context. A bay measuring five metres, the size of a small terrace house, articulates a rhythm to the street façade. The building is topped off with a familiar gabled roof, multiplied across the street’s length, bestowing industrial allure upon the building. Inside, the large scale recedes. The workplaces and meeting rooms are once again tailored to the size of a terrace house.

An inclusive hybrid

“Ever more institutions, policymakers, companies and designers in European cities are playing a part in the big shared job of once again welcoming industry in the city. They are aligning to resist the demixing and suburbanisation that has been rolling ahead for decades, the relentless process of replacing factories and depots with residential dominated development, the expulsion of industry to the periphery, sometimes pushing it abroad or snuffing it out. The boldest city makers no longer accept the city as a setting dominated by consumption, they point out that this dominance poses a threat to economic diversity.

According to these bold voices, cities should not be labelled ‘post- industrial’. Instead, the thriving urban economy, and again burgeoning populations, can be fertile ground for new places of production, reuse and repair. Bakeries, breweries, bespoke tailoring shops, electronic device recycling facilities, furniture workshops, plumbers lairs, packing plants, print and metal workshops, gardeners and builders yards. All of these, samples from a long blue collar list, are much needed in our cities. Large scale factories, where they do depart, can readily be replaced by numerous smaller-scale places of industry, each of which brings its own added value to the table.This transformation can succeed only when opportunities are grasped and coalitions forged.
(…)
We urgently need more examples to demonstrate how industry can fit in to the city, and how production can once again be a part of the urban spectacle. All too often, mock-industrial buildings are erected as part of large scale developments, waiting to be reprogrammed into offices in the long run. Some recent developments prove that there is an alternative.

The renovated Ryhove facility is a shining example. It brazenly exhibits its function and claims a prominent place for itself and for industry within the city limits, while blending in with the adjoining residential area. Skilled crafts people can find a place to work here, rather than in the city outskirts or beyond, far from where they live.

The repercussions of industry fully departing our cities are now better understood. We know that such segregation is not what we want. Alternatives are now being tested, brave initiatives showing the way forward. It is time for action, for the builders to get busy, as they have to make the projects in this book. Urban factories, city based depots and workshops, will be part a key part of tomorrow’s prosperous, vibrant and burgeoning cities, let’s accelerate the process of getting to that good future.”

- Mark Brearley, ‘City Made. Coalitions for industry in the city.’
In ‘City Made’, nai 010 publishers, 2018.