Marius Găman and Ana-Maria Branea work under the :STUDIO name as a research and experimentation laboratory focusing on understanding and exploring urban patterns and parameters, transformations and planning practices, architecture and design. :STUDIO is dedicated to creating sustainable interventions and projects, developed mainly for competitions or academic research. These investigations and experiments have been published, awarded, and exhibited nationally and internationally.

Europan projects have always been a mixture of applied research on the overarching themes proposed by the organizing board and innovative responses to real problems posed by local authorities with the explicit aim of being implemented. Following the runner-up prize won by the authors the local authorities of Aalst have organized a series of meetings, consultations and work sessions to create a masterplan for the area in collaboration with local architecture firm BUUR. The resulting project was shaped by the initial competition proposal, yet it implemented more detailed concerns and requirements of the site’s owners. The main theme was reinventing productive heritage as industrial areas have always been land guzzling gluttons, taking up central areas, often close by the water, to later abandon them for cheaper land on the city outskirts with all the inconvenient traffic generated by the move. Small manufacturing or production areas from a variety of industrial branches are more adaptable and resilient to shocks. Quality public spaces and services can foster collaboration between neighbouring businesses facilitating innovation and a circular economy. Of the four major types of production, extraction of raw resources, processing, services and research most cities aim only for the more profitable ones, thus generating gentrification, overspecialization and dependency on outside markets. Throughout its history the site has usually housed a dominant type of industrial branch, thus we propose a mix of all typologies, food producing greenhouses, small workshops and light industry, offices and research and creative industries with an entire refunctionalized building for continued education and retraining. In the northern part of the site we propose a recycling centre and circular hotspot building, consisting of a covered inner courtyard, accessible for trucks, a space to process recycled materials and waste or hold flea markets, three sides for repair workshops, recycling or retailing.