Serres Agricultural Research Station: New Schemes for Industrial Sites of the Past

3. School of Architecture, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece

 Abstract: This paper aims at discussing new schemes potential for industrial heritage re-use. The Agricultural Research Station in the city of Serres will be the main focus and it will be further argued as part of the former National Agricultural Research Institute. Looking onto the Agricultural Station a significant aspect of the city’s industrial past will be revealed, resting upon the industrial architecture history of the first half of 20th century in Greece. The paper discusses different architectural scenarios for the reuse of Serres Agricultural Research Station. It attempts to investigate new schemes of re-integration and new views for integrating the abandoned industrial building into the city’s life. The design schemes presented focus on re-use and re-alignment of key and secondary elements (access, direction, axial accumulation, clustering, pathways, connectivity, adjacency, land use). They also address the re-articulation of volumes (uniting, expanding, delegating, growing, restricting) and the re-configuration of interior, exterior and semi-open spaces and territories. This presentation aims at highlighting the importance in re-engaging with historical buildings, sites, complexes and territories. It argues for re-imagining architecture on the city’s edge, as well as redefining interface between old and new, future and existing, private and public, real and virtual, formal and informal, certain and ambiguous. All scenarios promote regeneration urgencies on pressing urban matters in medium sized cities of northern Greece.