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Reclaimed Ground: Wisley Airfield as an Ecological Knowledge Campus

Part 2 Project 2021
Thom Wood-Jones
Kingston University Kingston | UK
Wisley Former Airfield has laid dormant for the last 50 years, subject to abandonment and disuse. This project aims to reclaim this land through a responsive and ecologically oriented approach. Using means of minimal ground intervention – through re-utilisation of existing structural points, and introduction of natural and self-sufficient ecological moments around which the latter campus will be composed.

The project itself looks to introduce a new campus, one which sustains itself through the land upon which it is situated. The campus will be built in a way envisions both reuse of the existing ground condition and surrounding site, and one which utilises innovative construction methods. A core principle of this being to concentrate the proposed moments of inhabitation within the site within three central buildings, a tower for living, a hall for constructing, and a space for learning.

Through simplified and efficient design there is no superfluous use of material, creating no excess – demonstrating only utility. Further, via componentisation of construction, the future life span may be elongated into the future, spatially added to, or subtracted from, in line with the needs and requirements of the campus. As with the trees which surround it, it may grow with time.


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2021
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