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Chada Elalami

Year 2 MArch




The Smouldering Interface

Wildfires

Greenfield, Peak District Boundary, UK


The Smouldering Interface project seeks to redefine life within a wildland-urban interface by embracing fire as an integral part of the environment and fostering a harmonious coexistence despite its potential challenges and impacts.

In response to the significant impact of the 2018 Saddleworth Moor fires, the project is located adjacent to a fire scar and aims to enhance fire resilience within the at-risk community. Departing from traditional approaches that simply reject fire, the project adopts a multifaceted perspective, embracing a paradigm of adaptation. It explores various fire interactions, including guidance, containment, rejection, protection, and educational utilization, based on its specific position within a wildfire matrix.

The project consists of a series of multifaceted interventions that operate as a holistic system, addressing three distinct phases: fire risk mitigation, fire response, and fire recovery. As a risk mitigation measure, sacrificial wooden interventions are strategically placed in the landscape to interact with climatic conditions and alleviate fire-prone conditions such as soil moisture and strong winds. Additionally, fire education and awareness serve as indispensable non-physical risk mitigation measures.

The architecture of the project is designed to tactically respond to fire, employing a range of fire-resistant properties. It utilises low fire resistance for wood elements and high fire resistance for the biopolymer material. The varying charring levels of the biopolymer orchestrate and choreograph fire dynamics intentionally. Moreover, the project introduces an innovative fire-resistant wood-based biopolymer as a material strategy for post-fire recovery. This biopolymer can be fabricated on-site by the community in designated workshop areas.




The project tackles the issue of wildfire in the Wildland Urban Interface. The project utilizes a fire probability matrix to address the uncertain nature of fire, enabling targeted interventions when juxtaposed with additional information such as population data. The challenge of wildfires reside in their inconsistency, particularly regarding its seasonal variation and therefore calls for an adaptive programme. The fire response strategy mainly consists of material resilience therefore a new wood based biopolymer recipe is conceived to act as a fire resistant material. The strategy is heavily based on an invented wood biopolymer that is fire resistant and acts as a material resilience strategy for the community. The project builds on existing fire practices, reimagining fire walls using the invented biopolymer material. As demonstrated by thermal imaging experiments, it achieves a fire-resistant and retardant wall composition that incorporates an effective thermal lag. The structural strategy involves a dual and paradoxical resistance to fire and consists of a sacrificial vs stable build up. The core strategy of the project borrows from indigenous practices of fire (ie cultural burning) and involves the intentional burning of certain areas of the architecture, designed as sacrificial zones, to prevent the spread of fire to other areas that are more vulnerable, particularly those located closer to urban settlements. The house retrofitting becomes a communal activity that calls for collaboration and that acts as a closed cycle closely linked to the wildfire seasonal cycle. The project accommodates two separate ‘residencies’ where design precautions are made for both human and fire occupancies - manifested through the juxtaposition of the guiding vs. the protective walls, therefore, creating a fire choreography.




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