Cultural Heritage Integration Lab (CHI-L)
The Cultural Heritage Integration Lab (CHI-L) is an independent, research-driven practice founded and directed by Claudiu Silvestru , operating at the intersection of artistic inquiry, critical discourse, and applied transformation of the built environment.
CHI-L works at the intersection of existing building stock transformation, reuse, and responsibility in creation. Rather than treating heritage as a static category, CHI-L understands inheritance as an active cultural process: a continuous negotiation of what is received, maintained, transformed, reused, and passed on within contemporary society.
The concept of inheritance values serves as a connective framework linking material resources, cultural meaning, social responsibility, and future-oriented design decisions. It enables architectural, ecological, cultural, and ethical dimensions to be addressed within a shared evaluative logic — supporting informed decision-making in complex transformation contexts.
CHI-L operates through an integrated cycle of reflection and practice, combining artistic inquiry, critical essays, and applied research and development projects:
- Artistic inquiry functions as an epistemic and emotional medium, making questions of inheritance, continuity, and change tangible and experientially accessible beyond technical or normative frameworks.
- Critical essays provide conceptual depth and discursive reflection, situating inheritance values within broader cultural, societal, and disciplinary contexts and supporting processes of negotiation and meaning-making.
- Applied R&D projects translate these insights into practical tools and concrete transformation processes. This includes the socio-cultural assessment of existing buildings, the identification of relevant values, and the development of transformation concepts tailored to specific ownership structures, regulatory frameworks, and community contexts.
Rather than producing fixed solutions, CHI-L positions itself as a reflective partner, critical companion, and integrative interface for owners, municipalities, institutions, practitioners, and cultural actors engaged in the transformation of the built environment.
Through this approach, CHI-L contributes to contemporary European discourses on sustainability and cultural heritage by positioning building stock transformation between cultural meaning, societal relevance, and technical performance.