– Manifesto –

Living in a world that is moving towards a state of scarcity and imbalance

requires, especially from Architects, a wide understanding of the cause and the effects of the global system that we created.
A system based on culture of goods and consuming, followed by an abundancy of ruins and waste.

The aim of the project is to give new life to the ruins available, both in small and large scale.
After an analysis of Isle of Grain, it is clear that the landscape is the result of human activities and natural adaptations: with every moment passing the boundary that we created erodes, the ruins of WW2 defences disappear under a greenly tangle, and the sea constantly redefines a new landscape.

Meanwhile, we build brand new houses with a smell of plastic envelope, and we demolish the memories of our past. Grain and Kingsnorth power station, for instance, should become part of our heritage as opposed to disappearing.

Instead of accelerating the Entropy of the buildings, we should learn to reuse and readapt. Designing with what’s available in site, in this case an half destroyed factory, preserving the structures when possible and, when not, dissembling them to recover resources in order to create new.
This process of erasing gives back tons of crumbled concrete, steel beams, bricks, slabs, pipes, furniture, and other fragments.

Salvage materials creates a more sustainable system, with a different kind of architecture, which integrates with the existing future’s ruins.

“ The old and the new should be linked by a relationship of continuity.”

[ Ciriaco de’ Pizzicolli, 1420, Ancona ]