The former ‘Stokerij Claes’ is located in Hasselt and is a remnant of an industrial past in the area next to an abandoned railway line. The roots of the building were built mid 19th C. and climbing up to the industrial complex we see today by the end of the 19th C. The majority of the complex was restored and repurposed in the last three decades to a restaurant, bed & breakfast and two houses with artist-studios from the brothers Peters - the current owners. A last remnant of the complex stands in ruin and used to be the mill-room (maalderij) of the facility. Together with Studio Ruben Castro a study is made to repurpose the ruin into an exhibition- and event space to the studio’s and bed & breakfast, integrating the use-value of the building with the rest of the complex. The ruin is conserved in its current state to the maximum, avoiding the need for a total reconstruction of the volume and keeping its status as a landscape element intact. Inside the building the structural logic of the existing building is maintained, though replaced with contemporary elements that echo the former structural elements. The vaulted ceilings in brickwork are beyond saving and will be used as a lost formwork for a new concrete slab, leaving the imprint of the existing on the surface of the new element. Former steel columns are replaced with wooden ones, creating an interesting tension between the old and the new.
