Situated in the edgelands, estuarine flats and wetlands of Essex for the year ahead, we will address the condition of ‘modern nature[1]’which we find, opening a conversation about the value and meaning of place in a modern, post-industrial society. An area with immense horizontal skies punctuated by the vertical of wind turbines, lighthouses, WW2 coastal radar defences and church spires, it’s 350 miles, formed of a condition best described as in between land and sea, have been constantly captured in poetry, prose, photography, film and painting, offering us a multitude of routes into understanding.

Long since devalued and undermined through harsh media representations, Essex has suffered an identity crisis and yet, exploring its territory on foot is richly rewarding in the wide array of conditions that are found, its mesmerising, moody landscapes, rich in animal and bird life contrasting with its bucolic interior, have a constant draw, it acts as a ‘laboratory for a new kind of Englishness[2]’.  

In part due to its proximity to London, Essex has long been home to radical settlements; Tolstoyan anarchist colonies, plotlands, planned factory towns, experimental new towns and more recently alternative self-sustaining communities. We will draw on this tradition and propose a new settlement as a model for local existence, with living, working and production all at its heart, whether a micro-brewery with bar/ or bakery school and associated fields for grain production, a boat building workshop or a research site for developing sustainable plant-based construction materials or else to be determined. Associated with an existing situation, reflective of incremental patterns of rural occupation grown gradually over time, we will work with two sites distinct in character, addressing concerns around loss of identity and rural depopulation.  

We will begin by closely studying the territory in person or by distance, creating an atlas of the place, understanding the local dialect and arming us with a vocabulary to design with. We ask what a contemporary rural architecture might look like, how might one construct a lasting new vernacular and identity, avoiding the trappings of an historical nostalgia, whilst critiquing the increasingly tourism centred ‘theme park’ status of rural England, by offering a tangible alternative?

We observe and enjoy how rural existence often generates provisional and adept solutions, with a speed and urgency to them. Whether an ad-hoc shed, sheltering animals or produce, or a factory housing a place of production, the architectures generated are often economic, immediate and highly responsive to the demands of climate, topography and programme. This lack of definite precedent opens a multitude of possibilities for the studio in terms of architectural language.

[1] Ken Warpole, Camden Arts Centre Edgelands 2015

[2] Ibid