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ABSTRACT
Decommissioned historical military property is extensively used for civilian activities. Renovated historical army barracks have been turned into residential buildings, administrative and educational facilities, museums, even churches. Depots, garages and warehouses facilitate entrepreneurs and freight forwarders. Airports serve the needs of civilian and leisure aviation. While these functions have all been successfully introduced into historical post-military architecture, saving it from demolition and vacancy, they are hardly moneymakers. They won't tempt potential high-stake investors into devoting their resources to barrack complexes and only significant financial expenses can keep large compounds from being broken apart. Unfortunately, partitioning of large post military facilities is a common practice. It speeds up the sale and helps the seller achieve a higher price. Yet, dividing post-military facilities obliterates their utility as educational aids and bearers of local tradition, as their primary value is typological. A large post-military compound can only bring significant profit, if it contains various functions, profitable both during the day and at night. These innovatively developed compounds must encompass functions catering to diverse activities of various social groups. They must become a mix-use development city subdistrict. The paper explores case studies of innovative adaptations expanding the lifecycle of historic post-military compounds, while retaining their antiquarian appeal.
Keywords: sustainable regeneration, military barrack complexes, cultural landscape, social cohesion, mixed-use land patterns
INTRODUCTION
Historical barracks, once located on the outskirts of municipalities, today find themselves in the position of mediator between historic downtowns and contemporary suburbs. Derelict and decommissioned, they deteriorate and attract urban blight. It so happens that barrack complexes, aside from their intended purpose, are by default innately functional and easily adaptable to various uses. They fall into the category of 'engineered landscape' constituting per se the intermediary between man and environment [1]. As such they qualify for highly experimental architectural planning, which exploits the opportunity to try out innovative urban regeneration strategies based on a combination of social, cultural and economic values. However, most of the post military facilities haven't been recognized as heritage or any case of real estate asset yet. In numerous cities military compounds: barracks, depots, shooting ranges are all of a sudden relinquished and transformed into brownfield areas with the abolition of conscription or restructuring of defence system. These inaccessible areas -...