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Harvesting a Contaminated Earth

Part 2 Project 2024
Peter Brewser
Edinburgh School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture | UK
Harvesting a Contaminated Earth re-evaluates the construction industry’s wasteful, harmful, and carbon-intensive practices by combining four threads: earth construction (subsoils and fibres as circular and bioregional materials to be implemented at scale); reuse (as a strategy to extend the lifespan of buildings, materials, and components); labour (as that which is often excluded by discussions of architectural design); and contamination (as a reality with which architects must contend).

The project investigates and tests these threads across two interconnected interventions in vacant warehouses in Granton, Edinburgh: a live-build structure made with discarded pianos and rammed earth, which marks the entrance to a nascent circular economy hub, supporting its public-facing activities; and the planned extension of a near-by warehouse, which is turned into a facility for remediating contaminated subsoils and for scaling up the preparation of earth (crushing, drying, mixing) for future construction, while also providing a public interface for learning about toxicity in the built environment.

These two interventions informed one another and allowed me to test the proposed solutions and tectonic assemblies iteratively, at different scales, and guided by a nuanced hands-on understanding of earth technologies and chemistries.

The live-build project was developed in collaboration with Coll Drury and James Melville.

Peter Brewser

Tutor(s)

2024
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