Paulien.dvd.Schueren - Daily Bread

Graduation project, Urban Architecture, TU Delft, 2022-2023

Tutors: Paul Vermeulen, Eireen Schreurs, Lex van Beusekom & Rosie van der Schans

The project is situated in the neighbourhood of Bressoux in the post-industrial city Liege in Belgium. Bressoux felt at first as a deserted place. It gave the impression that only people live here because of financial necessity. The people with better jobs move away, the ones left behind seem forgotten and neglected. “The winner takes it all!” is the attitude of our economy (Brugmans, 2016, p.6). What is left for the ‘others’? Are they the ones hidden behind the facades of Bressoux? What will their future perspective be?

In order to explore the lives of the people in multicultural neighbourhoods like Bressoux, a common ground had to be found. I believe it is food. And to be more specific: bread. Bread is used in almost every cuisine of every culture. Therefore the research follows the journey of bread trough time, space and the everyday life: Daily bread. The historical and social-cultural research of the production and consumption of bread, also led to an extended research on milling and (communal) wood-fire ovens. The research gave awareness of the importance of how we deal with our primary needs of food, warmth and community. They should be more visible and more directly involved in our daily lives.

The conclusion of the research is translated into the design. The design contains a communal oven within a living room for the neighbourhood, connected with a mill factory using the traditional stone-milling. This is situated in an existing building and surrounded by seven new-built apartment blocks. The apartment blocks consists of three or five apartments, all connected with the chimney of a tile-stove which provides most of the warmth and is located on the ground floor in a shared space.

The mill gives the neighbourhood the opportunity to buy local produces and healthy flour and the communal wood-fire oven a place to make their own bread or other food and share it with their neighbours in a warm space. The housing is based on the principle of sharing the responsibility of their warmth, which creates communities within the building block. So this project tries to give people an alternative future perspective in the winner-takes it all society by reconsidering the way we handle our primary needs. In order to hopefully improve the lives of ‘those others’, simply by giving back the control of their food, warmth and community.

Research

"Every loaf has a multi-layered story to tell. Bread is so twined with culture that one can start from a loaf of bread and find oneself talking about some of the largest issues of history and society."

William Rubel, Bread, 2011

Photographs from movie 'I Believe' - H.J. Hunter, 2019

Ali Baba, Bressoux, Liege, Belgium - own photograph, 2022

“This has overwhelmingly led to late-capitalist ‘winner takes it all’ societies of which rapidly growing inequality is striking.’’

“For a large group of people - the unemployed, migrants, refugees, youths, minorities - it is increasingly difficult to find them a place in the ‘winner- takes-all’ system in which everyone wants to be a winner, but only 1 percent is.”

George Brugmans, IABR, 2016

Bressoux, Liege, Belgium - own photograph 2022

“People have been healthier as hunters and gatherers and that embracing agriculture - bread as staple - was not the best choice for everyone. Adaption of farming implied slavery.”

William Rubel, Bread, 2011

Oldest found bread crumb, Amaia Arranz-Otaegui - Jordan, 2018

“Bread history starts in Fertile Crescent. Land between the two great rivers, The Tigris and the Euphrates, world’s first urban cultures developed. Bread was their foundations.”

William Rubel, Bread, 2011

Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden - Wenzel Peter, c.a. 1800

“Adam and Eve, expelled from the Garden of Eden, world organised around gathering, into a world where agricultural labor of providing themselves with bread, the creation myth’s staple food, will always be felt to be a harsh punishment.”

William Rubel, Bread, 2011

“You can see how hard life farming was and that bread, life’s staple, and thus a blessing, has also from the dawn of agriculture until recent times been a curse to the subsistence farmers who lived off the grain they grew, the growing of it only the beginning of the labour to turn it into bread.”

William Rubel, Bread, 2011

History of technology in the Netherlands. The genesis of a modern society 1800-1890 - 1992

“Milling as prevalent in the Netherlands until the mid-nine- teenth century had also not changed since the eighteenth or even seventeenth century. The grain was crushed between two roughened stones. In rural areas, the miller ground the grain grown in his area. In some port cities, grain from overseas also reached the millers.”

H.W. Lintsen, History of technology in the Netherlands. The genesis of a modern society 1800-1890, 1992

“As industrialisation took hold in Europe and North America agricultural practices became more efficient and ever fewer of us worked the land, milled grain or baked bread. One can say that as industrialization progressed both individually and collectively we grew further removed from grain agriculture, grain processing and the necessity of baking our daily loaf.”

William Rubel, Bread, 2011

Flour types,Mill Delfshaven - own photograph, 2023

“The mill works, but we don’t use it because it is very difficult to play even or let alone, make profit with the mill.”

Erwin, Mill Delfshaven, 2023

“Cheap white flour came available in the nineteenth century, when industrial revolution brought together higher grain yields and steel roller mills.”

William Rubel, Bread, 2011

Dossche Mill, Rotterdam - own photographs, 2022

“We are able to produce more than 250 different types of flour and wheat.”

Ad, Dossche Mill, 2022

Milling process on industrial scale - scan notebook

"They seem to be slowly decaying: the cathedrals of the countryside. Silo buildings have always been dominant in the countryside. A number of important silos, especially in urban areas, have now been protected in order to preserve and repurpose them."

Karel Loeff, Silo gebouwen van graan- en veevoederbedrijven in Nederland, 2011

Silo's - Bechers, 1998

“While country breads may never have had much relation with breads of the court and the upstairs table of wealthy households, the demise of these ancient relationships be- tween growing, milling, baking and eating is yet another indication that in many ways we as humans have entered a new phase in our cultural lives, one profoundly different from that of our ancestors.”

William Rubel, Bread, 2011

Making sourdough bread - own photographs, 2022

"Yeast and sugar makes it fast as possible, it changed the way we consume bread." "Bread can be a tool, sharing a bread, can bring people together”

Asli Hatipoglu, 2023

Making sourdough starters - own photographs, 2022

Time to harvest - Asli Hatipoglu, 2020

“People have different life styles, baking bread in a communal oven can be an excuse to meet. It can motivate to continue baking bread. I do it as a ritual, I share bread with friends and surroundings.”

Asli Hatipoglu, 2023

Visit BoTu, Neighbourhood oven - own photograph, 2022

“People are searching for simplicity, its brings people together and it warms up the space!”

“It takes time before people join the baking, as soon as Ayse joint, more Turkish women followed. You have to earn peoples trust.”

Bart, BoTu and Bakkerij de Eenvoud, 2022

“We know the skills of baking bread from out mothers and grandmothers. First I felt alone in the neighbourhood, now I know a lot of neighbours.”

Ayse, Bospolder en Tussendijken, 2022

“We bake the bread with people from the neighborhood as an activity. Our‘neighborhood concierge’ knows which people are in need and hands out the bread to them”

Bart, BoTu and Bakkerij de Eenvoud, 2022

Visit BoTu, Neighbourhood oven - own photograph, 2022

“Bakeries have to keep the price of a bread under 1 euro, otherwise people don’t come. With the rising gas prices this gets more and more difficult. So they put in more and more sugar in the dough to rise faster to keep the bread cheap. Making your own bread is not cheaper, but it is healthier!”

Bart, BoTu and Bakkerij de Eenvoud, 2022

Collage: Bakkerij de Eenvoud, Popeye & grain fields of Bressoux

Collage: Bakkerij de Eenvoud, Human Power Plant of Melle Smets & reference Raamwerk

“Morocco is a good example for communal ovens, many neighbor- hoods still have one. Having your own oven is only for the rich, it takes a lot of energy and space.”

Asli Hatipoglu, 2023

“Loneliness is almost applicable everywhere and always a good argument. Our individualism is wonderful, but it has to come to an end.”

Melle Smets, Huis van de toekomst, 2023

Human Power Plant, BoTu - Melle Smets, 2017

Built your own earth oven - Kiko Denzer and Hannah Field, 2007

Building oven, Veldkersweg Rotterdam - own photographs, 2023

Alamar Adelante, contruccion Horno de Barro

Building oven, Veldkersweg Rotterdam - own photographs, 2023

Built your own earth oven - Kiko Denzer and Hannah Field, 2007

Building oven, Veldkersweg Rotterdam - own photographs, 2023

An Afgan 'Korsi' - source unknown

“These days, we provide thermal comfort in winter by heating the entire volume of air in a room
or building. In earlier times, our forebear’s concept of heating was more localised: heating people not places.”

Restoring the Old Way of Warming - Low Tech Magazine, 2015

Gathering around the tile stove - Albert Anker, 1895

Russian stove ‘Housekeeper’

Heating system tile oven - History of heating systems

"Tile stoves produce a large share of radiant heat, but on top of this they allow heat transfer through conduction, as many tile stoves had built-in platforms to sit or sleep on."

Restoring the Old Way of Warming - Low Tech Magazine, 2015

Heating system tile oven - History of heating systems

Russian ordinary stove

Sesc Pompeia Factory - Lina Bo Bardi

Lichtervelde - Raamwerk architecten

Werfstraat Brussel - Bovenbouw

Decoblok - Ploegsteert

First straw house - Par Gustave Lamache

Grain fields, Bressoux - Google maps, 2022

Refuge II - Wim Goes Architectuur

Design

Location of the site in the neighbourhood - Bressoux, Liege, Belgium

Urban vision, social cluster

Photographs plot - Inner courtyard east side and street on north side

Photographs plot - Existing buildings and inner courtyard west side

Photographs plot - View on east facade of existing building - Djamo Mastenbroek

View on entrance of existing building - Djamo Mastenbroek

1.200 model of site - Made together with fellow students

Volume design on site: urban void within urban block

Axonometric drawing existing situation - dotted line: demolish, yellow: re-used

Midterm: Section of first concept for the design - In the centre the mill with a communal oven and on the sides housing

Floor plan - 00

Floor plan - 01

Section North-South

Section East-West

Axonometric drawing - Hand drawing of the whole design

Axonometric drawing - Zoom in on communal oven

Axonometric drawing - Zoom in on dwelling block

Axonometric drawing - Zoom in on silo and mill

Facade drawings - Street views North & South

View on the inner court yard on the west side, looking on the south entrance and an apartment block

View from the inside of an apartment on the balcony and opposite apartment block

View on the inner court yard on the west side, with view on the mill and silo

View on the inner court yard on the east side, looking at the south facade of the mill

View on the collective space on the ground floor of an apartment block, with tile stove as central heating

Facade drawings of dwelling blocks

View on the square adjacent to the street on the north side

Model made by printed paper and foam, view on the model from bird eye - 1.100

View on the inner courtyard on the east side, viewed from the south

View on the street of the north side of the project

Facade drawings dwelling blocks - model preparation 1.100

Building construction

South facade dwelling block - 1:25

North facade dwelling block - 1:25

Vertical section of one of the apartment blocks - 1:25

Horizontal section of one of the apartment blocks - 1:25

Vertical section of the connection between the extended roof, normal roof with roof terrace and outer wall - 1:5

Vertical section of the connection between the roof and outer wall - 1:5

Vertical section of the connection between the outer wall and inner floor - 1:5

Vertical section of the connection between the outer wall, inner floor and cantilever - 1:5

Vertical section of the connection between the outer wall with door and ground floor with foundation - 1:5

Horizontal section of the connection between the protruding wall and the outer walls

Final exposition

Panel 1 - Location research and historical research of bread

Panel 2 - Historical research, Home baking and plot photos

Panel 3 - Floor plans of ground floor and first floor

Panel 4: Research communal oven and visit BoTu

Panel 5 - Research mills and visit Dossche mill and mill Delfshaven

Panel 6 - Street views North and South and mill-factory

Panel 7: Axonometric drawing of the whole site

Panel 8 - Sections and photo’s of the 1.100 model

Panel 9 - Research ovens and warmth systems

Panel 10 - Facade drawings of dwelling block 1.25

Panel 11 - Horizontal and vertical sections 1.25

Panel 12 - Atmospheric drawings and detail drawings 1.5

Some final notes

Article about the Urban Architecture graduation studio 2022.2023: 'Black Hill City' in A+ magazine, written by Paul Vermeulen and Elsbeth Ronner

Urban Architecture graduation studio of 2022-2023

A big thanks to all the mentors and my fellow students that joined the Urban Architecture graduation studio of 2022-2023! And a special thanks to: Djamo, Femke, Ines, Dave, Mats & Daan

Proud to say I have graduated with an 8.5/10!