Housing as Heritage, Heritage as Housing
From historic town regeneration in the Wuling Mountains to adaptive reuse on UNESCO islands, universities and architecture studios explore housing as a living organism, bridging past and future in the European Cultural Centre’s Venice exhibition
Housing today is a strong act of cultural continuity, environmental stewardship, and social regeneration. In the face of rapid urbanisation, shifting demographics, and climate imperatives, architects and academics are rethinking the DNA of domesticity, how the spaces we inhabit can both preserve history and accommodate the demands of contemporary life.
At Time Space Existence 2025, the theme of housing unfolds through complementary lenses: academic institutions and professional practices aim to frame housing within broader research, navigating the complexity linked to materials, heritage, and social realities on the ground. Together, these perspectives underscore a shared conviction: housing is most resilient when it is rooted in the rhythms of place.
Southeast University, School of Architecture
Living Regeneration: Revitalising Enshi Historical Town
Perched in the Wuling Mountains along the Qingjiang River, Enshi Historical Town is more than 800 years old, where multiple ethnic groups have harmoniously blended their diverse traditions, yet it remains a living settlement of 18,000 residents.
The School of Architecture at Southeast University avoids approaching the regeneration as preservation in amber, but as the revitalisation of an intricate socio-spatial organism. Projects span from converting an abandoned cotton mill into an archaeological park to transforming a derelict tannery into an “Art Acropolis” overlooking the town.
Here, housing is intertwined with public space and cultural infrastructure: a senior and child care centre in a failed construction site, a hotel reimagining the WWII postal office, and a theatre emerging from the shell of a prison. In each case, architecture becomes a mediator between historical strata, local livelihoods, and contemporary use, ensuring that heritage is lived. This philosophy of treating the town as a co-created ecosystem resonates far beyond Enshi, finding parallels in other contexts where history and habitability converge.
Universidad Católica de Santiago de Guayaquil – Lab C+AU
Reincorporating Heritage as Collective Memory
In Guayaquil, Ecuador, heritage has too often been regarded as obsolete, associated with the static aura of museums. Students at the Architecture and Urban Critic’s Lab challenge this perception by reactivating historic structures as sites of housing and commerce, infusing them with the sensory and social textures of the past.
Their installation at Time Space Existence reconstructs, at 1:2 scale, the façade and mixed-use gallery of the Lavayen Paredes House (1899), once a riverside hub for cocoa drying, trade, and community gathering. By reintroducing the smells of cocoa and chocolate alongside architectural detail, the Lab proposes that sensory memory can be as critical as spatial memory in shaping future housing typologies.
The work stresses the importance of Zeitgeist knowledge, the imperative to be present in time and place if architecture is to serve its community. By reincorporating historic buildings as collective memory, the students highlight their essential role in the city’s growth, reminding us that one must look backwards before looking forward.
This layered approach, where cultural and economic functions overlap, suggests that the survival of heritage housing depends on its ability to sustain multiple forms of life simultaneously.
Gantous Arquitectos
Bridging Eras Through Adaptive Reuse
From the Palacio de Bellas Artes to the Zacatecas Cathedral, Gantous Arquitectos operates at the intersection of meticulous restoration and contemporary intervention. In their work, housing is not a separate typology, but an ethos that values continuity of use, material authenticity, and contextual dialogue.
The conversion of Casa Polanco, a 1940s Neo-Colonial mansion, into a boutique hotel, or the reimagining of Casa Michelena with discreet modern insertions, reflects the belief that built heritage should evolve without erasing its past. Their adaptive sensibility, focused on proportion, materiality, and spatial narrative, ensures that housing transformations feel inevitable rather than imposed.
LOD | Laliving and Opr Design
Kulangsu Island: Housing Heritage in a UNESCO Landscape
Kulangsu Island, a pedestrian-only UNESCO World Cultural Heritage site located in southeastern China along the Taiwan Strait, offers a living case study in how historic housing stock can be conserved while enabling contemporary community life. LOD’s work on the island integrates cultural mapping, adaptive reuse, and ecological design, ensuring that restoration is paired with sustainable resource management, from reusing roof tiles on-site to retaining mature trees. Housing here is not just an architectural object but a node in a broader network of cultural exchange, tourism, and local livelihoods. By merging historic structures with contemporary performance spaces, LOD demonstrates that heritage housing thrives when it acts as a catalyst for new social and cultural rituals.
Across continents and contexts, these participants in Time Space Existence 2025 challenge the binary between “old” and “new”, proposing instead that housing, when grounded in heritage, can be both a vessel for memory and an engine for innovation. Whether approached through academic inquiry or professional practice, the shared value is clear: the most enduring housing projects are those that neither fetishise the past nor abandon it, but inhabit it fully, allowing communities to write the next chapters of their built environments.
