Making Use

Product detailed description

 When buildings stop working and demolition is not the answer. What do we do with buildings that have lost their purpose? Is removal truly the only way forward? And how do we recognise the potential that is not visible at first glance?

Making Use presents the approach of the architecture studio KOGAA to transforming existing buildings and urban structures. It is rooted in the conviction that a shift in perspective is needed: not asking what should be removed, but what can be used, and looking not for ideal empty fields, but for the potential in what already stands.

Drawing on the studio's own projects, the book opens broader questions of adaptation, transformation and the reuse of architecture. It guides readers through the conversion of a former distillery into the creative centre The Distillery, an industrial complex turned into housing and lofts at DADA Distrikt, the creative hub KUMST, the historic spa complex Fuchs's Zábrdovice Baths, and a former fire station in Mikulov that is set to become a community centre.

Making Use is not a catalogue of projects. At its centre is a way of thinking, deciding and searching for new possibilities for what already exists. The texts by architect and KOGAA co-founder Tomáš Kozelský draw on the studio's practical experience and are complemented by the voices of investors, representatives of cities and institutions, and the people who use these places every day. The book shows how to find value in existing buildings and work creatively with both their limitations and their potential.

Who is this book for? Architects, urbanists and students of the field, but also investors, city representatives and anyone curious about how the places where we live and work can change.

Tomáš Kozelský's texts are accompanied by contributions from Kateřina Baťková, Jana Janulíková, Soňa Klepek Jonášová, Petra Korlaar, Václav Kočí, Barbora Netopilová, Miroslav Pekník, Eva Prázdná, Veronika Rút, David Severa and Petr Štefek. The book was designed by Studio KOSATKO.

KOGAA is an architecture studio based in Prague and Brno, founded in 2015 by Tomáš Kozelský, Alexandra Georgescu and Viktor Odstrčilík. It works across architecture, interiors and urban transformation, seeking new possibilities for buildings, places and cities. The transformation of existing structures is the studio's long-standing theme. The Making Use approach grows out of realised projects and Tomáš Kozelský's doctoral research. The portfolio ranges from DADA Distrikt and JIC HQ through KUMST, The Civic Counter and Šmeral Art Factory to the revitalisation of commercial structures such as FUTURUM.