Practice-based Research
Research embraces the act of creativity into generating new knowledge, with the creative act itself informing or driving the investigation of Elin Hirsch.
Elin’s research conceptualises architecture as a critical framework for engaging with questions of cultural heritage, ecology, and sustainability. Through case-based inquiry, archival research, and theoretical analysis, it examines how buildings, objects, and sites embody layered meanings that exceed their material conditions. Employing architectural heritage as an analytical lens, the research investigates how cultural, emotional, and phenomenological dimensions inform practices of preservation, reconstruction, and transformation. Rather than approaching heritage as a fixed or stable object, the research understands it as a dynamic and contested process in which values, memories, and meanings are continuously negotiated.
Difficult Heritage /
Besværlig kulturarv, 2025
RESEARCH
Following the fire at the Copenhagen Stock Exchange (Børsen) in April 2024, a decision was made to reconstruct the building, prompting extensive public and professional debate. This thesis examines the reconstruction of Børsen as a case of difficult heritage, in which architectural, cultural, and historical values are contested and renegotiated. The study asks why and how Børsen should be reconstructed, and what is at stake in such a process.
Drawing on architectural analysis, heritage theory, and empirical material including the official vision for reconstruction and the building’s heritage listing, the thesis explores tensions between material and immaterial values, form and meaning, and preservation and reconstruction. The analysis foregrounds questions of recognisability, historical layering, and phenomenological experience, as well as the implications of material use and sustainability.
The thesis argues that heritage cannot be understood solely as material substance, but emerges through the interaction of buildings, values, meanings, and lived experience over time. The reconstruction of Børsen is thus framed as a critical opportunity to rearticulate cultural heritage in a reflective and responsible manner for present and future generations.
´Besværlig kulturarv. En undersøgelse af forskellige positioner med Børsen som case´, 2025
[Eng.´Difficult heritage. An analysis of different positions with the old Bourse in Copenhagen as case´]
The Sustainable Gaze /
Det bæredygtige blik
2024 – 2025
RESEARCH
This research project investigates how different methods can be combined to highlight the values and resources of existing buildings—at the material, architectural, historical, and social levels, as well as in terms of human experience and identity-shaping qualities.
The project’s results are grounded in an empirical case study of a harbor area with several industrial
buildings identified for redevelopment. The purpose was to examine the capacity of these buildings for
transformation and reuse, guided by a strategy of minimizing the use of new resources while planning
transformations that respect and build upon the buildings’ history, typology, tectonic “logic,” and cultural meanings.
— In collaboration with Svendborg Municipality.
‘Det bæredygtige blik´– en empirisk undersøgelse af Østre Kajområde i Svendborg, 2025
[eng. The Sustainable Gaze – an empirical analysis of the Easter Harbour in Svendborg, 2025]
Sustainable valuation of
existing buildings /
Bæredygtig værdisætning
af eksisterende bygninger, 2024
RESEARCH
This theoretical study investigates the potential of combining methods from resource assessment—traditionally applied prior to demolition to identify reusable building parts and estimate the embedded material capital—with methods for identifying and highlighting architectural, cultural, historical, and social values. In addition, the project explores the possibility of integrating approaches for detecting the phenomenological qualities of buildings, emphasizing the significance of the interrelations between building elements, which play a central role in shaping both the atmosphere of a building and the bodily experience of it.
The findings from this theoretical inquiry form the foundation for a subsequent empirical study: ‘Det bæredygtige blik´- – en empirisk undersøgelse af Østre Kajområde i Svendborg, 2025 [eng. The Sustainable Gaze – an empirical analysis of the Easter Harbour in Svendborg.]
