Überlagerung
Vacancy, appropriation und transformation in silesia
Masterthesis
Vacancy, appropriation und transformation in silesia
Masterthesis
6th semester M.Sc
Summer semester 2025
Summer semester 2025
Leibniz University Hanover
Faculty of Architecture and Landscape
Chair for Regional Building and Urban Planning
Institute of Urban Design and Planning
Prof. Dipl.-Ing. Univ. Jörg Schröder
Riccarda Cappeller MSc MA
Faculty of Architecture and Landscape
Chair for Regional Building and Urban Planning
Institute of Urban Design and Planning
Prof. Dipl.-Ing. Univ. Jörg Schröder
Riccarda Cappeller MSc MA
My master thesis is dedicated to the layered spatial, historical, and cultural conditions of postwar Silesia. Titled Überlagerung, it explores how vacancy and structural change, shaped by displacement and resettlement after 1945, have left lasting imprints on the region. Focusing on Głuszyca, a small town in Lower Silesia, I investigated vacant structures and developed strategies for their reactivation. The thesis unfolds in six conceptual steps: Status Quo, Impulse, Activation, Resonance, Anchoring, and Consolidation. These stages guide a process-oriented approach to transforming vacancy into spaces of engagement. The methods include historical layering, site-specific mapping, spatial narratives, theoretical framing, and design-based research. Together, they form a toolbox for reinterpreting underused spaces as sites of memory, participation, and future potential. The accompanying magazine brings together architectural, urbanistic, and cultural perspectives to envision how layered spaces can become shared spaces again, through appropriation, transformation, and care.