[Traces, States + Transformations] - 25/26
John Cook, Ben Pollock + Laura Nica

Context

Our site of investigation this year brings us to the subtropical archipelago of the Scilly Isles. These mythical islands, rumoured tohave once been connected to the UK via the lost Kingdom of Lyonesse, were formed by the release of magma from deep within the Earth’s core over 190m years ago. Through continental collisions, successive ice ages and rising seas, this historically unified landmass now forms a fragmented array of over 140 crystallised granite outcrops. Theirunique and isolated geography fosters a diverse array of habitat types, from coastal heathlands, wetlands to cultivated fields, shifting dunescapes, coral reefbeds, to saline lagoons. The Isles’ nutrient richwaters, warmed by the North Atlantic drift, nourishes a trove of diverse marine life, migratory birds, and endemic Scillonian flora - vital to the agricultural and tourism economies that support its 2,500+ inhabitants.

Despite this, these precarious low lying islets are on the very frontline of climatic collapse. Sea level rise, subsidence and coastal erosion has already begun to reshape their coastlines, whilst intensifying weather events and storm surges from the Atlantic endanger local communities, whose groundwater becomes increasingly sensitive to drought, salineintrusion and contamination. Amongst this constellation of ever shrinking landforms, we will explore the conflicting notions of land value, designation, and outdated models of ownership, whilst reimagining these systems for the future of island communities more agile to the impending rate of territorial deformation and loss. These small island sites, whilst spatially embodying the essence of independence and self-reliance, offer a proving ground for new models of cooperative governance, adaptive resource networks and collective regenerative possibilities.

Transformation

We will commence the year through research and mapping, by identifying a particular phenomena of interest, we will trace its emergence through the geophysical history of the Isle’s fragmentation, its state amongst present day ecologies, whilst projecting its future climatic trajectories. Through this, we will isolate selected dynamic material processes, deconstructing them into their underlying components of conditions, forces and parameters. We will emulate these interactions using digital tools within active simulated environments, to isolate and test their variables to understand logics and behaviours through time, as well as their generation, influence and organisational potential on matter, forces and forms. Challenging presumptions towards stasis, permanence and rigidity, we will explore these emergent architectural forms as fluid, dynamic and reactive entities, embedded with programmatic functions and material intelligence. Responding amongst volatile environments and legislative constraints, we will develop these objects as probable geometries - multiplicitous, amorphous, anexact, deforming under influence in a continuous state of adaptation, transformation and evolution. This approach posits ‘buildings’ not as static assemblies of fossil fuelled components and inert matter but as active agents, adaptive organisms within wider fields of influence, prompting critical questions around architecture’s role in our ever transient, erratic andunpredictable world.
L.Bremner & R.Bottazzi (2016), Architecture, Energy, Matter
M.Weinstock (2010), The Architecture of Emergence
G.Lynn (1999), Animate Form