Between July 26 – August 3, 2025, Reșița hosted the first edition of the “Reșița Industrial Heritage Lab” Summer School, an interdisciplinary program dedicated to exploring and reinterpreting local industrial heritage, with a focus on Furnace No. 2, a historical monument of national importance. The workshop was coordinated by MKBT: Make Better alongside the Non-Formal Spatial Planning Workshop and was part of the project “Let’s Rally Around the Last Furnace,” implemented in partnership with the Reșița City Hall and with the support of the Order of Architects of Romania (through the architecture stamp) and The King’s Foundation. Concurrently, the workshop took place under the umbrella of Reșița 250 Lab, the urban innovation laboratory initiated by MKBT in 2023 as a cross-sectoral and inter-institutional collaboration ecosystem for the city's regeneration.

An Interdisciplinary Laboratory for Heritage

Over eight days, 20 participants – students, master’s students, doctoral students, and early-career professionals in architecture, urbanism, restoration, and spatial planning – conceived and re-imagined functional conversion scenarios for Furnace No. 2. Through a combination of theoretical sessions, field visits, discussions with experts and locals, guided tours within the still-active industrial complex of Artrom Steel Tubes, and meetings with local authorities, participants practiced the perspective in which industrial heritage can become a living resource, a common good that generates local pride and community opportunities.

Under the guidance of a team of mentors and invited lecturers from three university centers in the country and several international universities – architects, researchers, and specialists in heritage, urbanism, local economy, and anthropology – participants analyzed the site at three intervention scales: from the furnace's relationship with the city (macro scale), to the industrial complex (mezzo), and the object itself (micro), proposing solutions for reconnecting the furnace to the city and the daily lives of its inhabitants.

Why a Summer School Dedicated to the Furnace?

The choice of Furnace No. 2 as the object of study for the first edition of the “Reșița Industrial Heritage Lab” Summer School was not accidental. In 2023, the Reșița City Hall initiated correspondence with the furnace's owner, Artrom Steel Tubes, expressing its intention to explore scenarios through which it could be involved in the furnace's preservation and valorization. The furnace owner showed openness to this initiative, provided the city hall could identify ways to revitalize the furnace without disrupting the ongoing economic activity on the site. This tension/dilemma thus became the starting point for the summer school, and our motivation, as project initiators, was to support the City Hall in identifying and bringing these scenarios to the discussion table.

Secondly, the furnace represents Reșița's most imposing industrial heritage landmark and is truly a symbol of the city's over 250 years of iron and steel industry. For the participants, working on this site offered a unique opportunity to interact with an authentic, complex, and highly significant landmark, to learn through practice, and to formulate functional conversion questions and scenarios with real stakes applicable to the local planning process.

Thirdly, the choice of the furnace aligned with the strategic dimension of Reșița 250 Lab to bring together the academic, public, civic, and private sectors in a common, collaborative, and cross-sectoral endeavor for urban regeneration through heritage.

Therefore, the summer school was not just an academic exercise but an applied endeavor, born from a real question and transformed into a platform for dialogue and co-creation, promoting the principle of civic stewardship – shared care, with civic involvement, for the city's industrial legacy.

Methodology, Resources, and Tools

Beyond theoretical analysis, the process was built on a rigorous methodology and the use of modern documentation and design tools, aimed at grounding viable and relevant proposals for the furnace's future. To support the work process, the organizers provided participants with a complex set of documentary and technical resources:

• technical documentation from the Artrom Steel Tubes archive, capturing the furnace's evolution over time, and a dedicated tour of the Artrom Steel Tubes platform, guided by the plant's management team, to deepen the detailed understanding of the site as a whole, as well as the furnace as a location and its challenges; PHOTO
• historical photographs and maps, as well as a guided tour in the furnace area and in industrial Reșița, provided by Andrei Bălbărău from the Amateur Filmmaker Museum, to facilitate a thorough understanding of the spatial, historical, and social context of the furnace's development, respectively its relationship with other industrial heritage sites in the city; PHOTO
• a high-precision 3D scan, which resulted in a 3D mesh that allowed for detailed structural analysis and on which students worked directly to graphically present their proposals. The mesh was created through photogrammetry by a team of geodesy engineers from Xplorate Group. Students also benefited from a course taught by engineer Adrian Trifan, coordinator of Xplorate Group, on 3D scanning technologies and their applicability in architectural design; by integrating these digital tools into the educational process, the summer school contributed to promoting an interdisciplinary approach that combines research and technological innovation, thus supporting the advancement of practice in the field of industrial heritage revitalization. PHOTO
• aerial photographs and drone surveys, useful for visibility studies and integration into the urban landscape;
• a historical and cultural study by architect Maja Băldea and architect Gabriela Domokos-Pașcu, which contextualized the furnace's role in Reșița's industrial history.

Three Teams, Three Perspectives on the Furnace

The three teams formed offered complementary interpretations of the same landmark:

• “Be a Tourist in Your City” – an invitation to Reșița residents to rediscover heritage through an urban route connecting the furnace to the city center via walkways, platforms, and cultural spaces.
• “Continuous Casting” – a metaphor for continuity, proposing the transformation of the furnace into a hub of urban and community connections through thematic tours and adaptive spaces.
• “The Red Thread of the Furnace” – a concept that unifies the city and the industrial site through a symbolic, visual, and physical route, connecting heritage to the alternative mobility network.

The results – nine synthetic boards and visual proposals – were publicly exhibited during the Street Delivery Reșița event, in the “Let’s Wake Up the Furnace!” exhibition, offering the community an opportunity to explore ideas and imagine the future of this urban symbol. These materials are not definitive projects but visual and conceptual tools that can guide future planning and design processes, functioning as an atlas of possible scenarios for the adaptive reuse of the furnace.

You can browse the Summer School Brochure, which includes the nine synthetic boards, here.

Industrial Heritage as a Driver of Urban Regeneration

The summer school demonstrated that industrial heritage revitalization can be the subject of a co-creation process, where specialists, local administration, and the community work together to transform a historical landmark into a vibrant, integrated, and relevant space for the contemporary city.
For the participants, the experience was formative and inspirational – direct contact with an authentic heritage object, but also an opportunity to learn about interdisciplinary collaboration and strategic planning in real contexts: young people described the summer school as “a place where theory becomes direct experience” and “an example of collaboration between community, administration, and industry for heritage protection.”

“Everything university studies fail to capture about industrial heritage: a humanist, living, and applied perspective that transforms theory into direct experience.” (Summer school participant)

“For me, this summer school was an eye-opening experience; I learned things I didn’t expect to discuss and my expectations were met in ways I didn’t know I should have them.” (Summer school participant)

“The most memorable moments for me were the site visits with Andrei, or really any connection made between the object itself and the community around it.” (Summer school participant)

A Step Forward for Reșița and for Reșița 250 Lab

Through the “Reșița Industrial Heritage Lab” Summer School, Reșița becomes an example of a city rediscovering its industrial identity and transforming it into a driver of sustainable urban development.

“The “Reșița Industrial Heritage Lab” Summer School represented, for the Non-Formal Workshop team, an opportunity to apply the methodological principles that guide our activity (co-creation, multi-scalar approach, interdisciplinarity) to a national heritage industrial landmark.

As mentors and tutors, my colleagues and I focused on developing critical and collaborative thinking among participants, whom we encouraged to discover (and refine) their skills in strategic planning.

Above all, we were impressed by the attention participants paid to the subject, the depth with which they understood the context, and the ingenuity they demonstrated in outlining scenarios for transforming the Furnace into a catalyst for urban regeneration.” (Ștefana Bădescu, Non-Formal Planning Workshop)

MKBT, together with ANF and local partners, aims to continue these types of initiatives in future editions of the laboratory, offering a framework for learning and collaboration for professionals who believe in cities regenerating through heritage.