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[By]Product Landscape

Part 2 Project 2012
Andrew Tindale
University of Nottingham Nottingham | UK
[BY]PRODUCT LANDSCAPE explores the current relationship between humankind and landscape by proposing a situated biodiverse landscape as a setting for human ecology. Situated within Topley Pike Quarry in the Peak District National Park, it explores how this post-industrial, manufactured landscape’s legacy may be preserved as a trace after quarrying has finished (2025) and re-establishes it within its social and environmental context. The project exploration is based upon two main themes that have informed the architectural and programmatic response to the site:
The Sublime:

Within contemporary art and architectural discourse, the 18th century aesthetic of the sublime has re-emerged as a significant theme. The awe inspiring 18th century power of nature has shifted to the power of human nature.

The Social Dichotomy of the Land:

The Peak District’s main stakeholders of the land are tourists, farmers and quarry workers. Transient visitors/ tourists use the land mainly for recreation, experience and personal gratification, which I will call primarily optic. Whereas farmers and quarry workers, whom are deeply rooted within the landscape’s history, social context, economy and environment, I have established as haptic. This relationship between the optic and the haptic is used to develop a site-specific programme that aims to cater for and heal this dichotomy.

The architectural interventions are structured as three main layers:

1. The site becomes an extension of the 8 mile Monsal Trail, creating a safely visitable landscape of the manufactured sublime.

2. Aggregations of short stay, vertical caravans, are clipped on the western and northern faces of the quarry for walkers and overnight guests and provide a means of engaging with the quarry’s liminal space.

3. The base of the quarry becomes the host for medium to long stay healers of the land. These workers spend their days growing moss, maintaining the associated infrastructure and making moss briquettes. These briquettes, primarily used as a building material, form an innovative part of a wider cycle of growth, maintenance, decay and regeneration carried out upon the site. Everyday people farm and foster this barren land at a human scale, healing and providing the place with a renewed identity.


Tutor(s)
Prof Michael Stacey
2012
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