Tales of an Abandoned Oil Hinterland
A Healing Forest of Decay
The project employs narrative architecture to challenge how the Future Forest evolves beyond a conventional ecosystem of woodland. By designing architecture as a Creature, the project studies how culture influences infrastructures. The Healing Forest of Decay is inhabited by a new Traveller community whose lifestyle and belief revolve around seasonal climatic changes. Decay is romanticised and celebrated in this community as signs of deterioration are regarded as reflection on time passage and the birth of new opportunities.
Through architectural storytelling, the project designs architecture as a creature which interacts with and responds to cultural and environmental dilemmas in creating a temporal space with the ability to address and harvest the soil pollution issue rooted in a post-industrial hinterland. The birth of a congregational space proposes dedicated ritual grounds to provide shelter and purpose for nomads along the road.
The Future Forest emerges, ages, dies and re-emerges with the assistance of its loyal worshippers as it inhabites sites of toxic decay and dereliction.
This prototype explores topics of ceremonial decay in relation to seasonal changes. It consists of a Canopy which has the ability to age and wrinkle and it’s supported by a metal skeletal system. Under the Canopy you will find two harvesting layers with the top sieve filtering the compost whilst the lower layer collects and stores it as the canopy disintegrates and decays.
1:500 Physical Chunk Model
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