TRANSFORMATION OF AN INDUSTRIAL SITE
Ferrier Marchetti Studio
The project involved the transformation of an industrial site in the small town of Limoux in the Aude department, and at the heart of a community of municipalities with 30,000 inhabitants. It is a threshold town between urban and rural, a situation that exemplifies the future of regions that have been left behind by major economic trends.
The social and economic history of the town centered throughout the 20th century on viticulture as well as two factories: the Myrys – Bata shoe factory, now gone, and a prosperous tile factory, which moved elsewhere in the region at the end of the 1980s. Though abandoned, the tile factory continued to live on in the collective imagination: it is a familiar landmark, keeping alive a social memory.
Faced with its abandonment, the community of municipalities chose to acquire the ensemble and to undertake its re-conversion into a cultural center. It was a major challenge for a city struggling to maintain shops, services, and attractiveness.
To take into account the limited means of a small community, the brief relied on mutualising investments, which resulted in a mixed-use facility. It groups the media library, the conservatory of music, and the headquarters for the
40- REFURB & RESTORE