Architecture and the Use Value of Ruins

Many people lack an understanding of the use value associated with ruins, putting ruins at risk of future demolition. If the use value of ruins was to be not only acknowledged, but utilized, paradigms associated with ruins would shift. Architecture professionals could learn to work with and alongside ruins and use contemporary means to reintegrate ruins back into their context and further stress the importance of why ruins should be valued in a contemporary society. This book intends to discover how and why architects make design decisions for interventions that showcase the use value of ruins. Subquestions are based on: the scale of decay that architects use to determine a ruin, architects’ understandings and views of the potential use value of ruins, the types of architects that value ruins most, and what architects are doing and have done in the past with ruins to reintegrate them within their community.