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Emerging Earthen Interfaces

Part 1 Project 2024
Shani Wright
University of Cambridge | UK
This project is a celebration of earth construction, and demonstrates its’ potential to define and connect the spaces that we live, work and socialise in. It explores shifting boundaries between home and work due to COVID19, providing co-working apartments for young professionals, and addresses the climate crisis through its hierarchical construction. Its graduated materiality improves the buildings longevity and flood resistance, while contributing positively towards efforts to meet low carbon targets.

The urban massing restores the Deptford’s relationship with the river, and culminates in a public ‘third space’ that celebrates the very substance of the river – the mud itself. Here, the earthen interface between public and private is most evident. The semi-private, co-working spaces, constructed using light earth, interlock openly with the public realm below, which is contained within a brick plinth and elevated experientially through the use of perforation, glazing and low-fired, handmade bricks. Though acting as a boundary between the two spaces, a sculptural balustrade creates synergy between the contrasting materialities and aims to encapsulate the essence of the project:

A step towards mud city. A new urban life emerging from the creek in juxtaposition to its concrete surroundings.

Shani Wright

Tutor(s)


2024
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