7. Interior Reuse
Beth Elen Roberts
Originally from North Wales, I am a spatial designer and researcher with an interest in adaptive reuse. Prior to my time at the RCA, I studied Fine Arts at Chelsea College of Art (UAL) and received a first-class degree (2013-2016). During my BA, I had the opportunity to specialize in Sculpture, Sound and Spatial practice during an exchange semester at RMIT in Melbourne.
After graduating, I assisted in prop-making for theatre (ROH) and retail in London (James Glancy Design), and undertook a collaborative sculpture residency in Jodhpur, India. I was also selected as lead invigilator for Wales in Venice, at the 2017 Venice Biennale and continued to exhibit my work widely, at events such as Peckham Arts Festival and the National Eisteddfod ‘Y Lle Celf’ where I was shortlisted for the Young Artist’s Scholarship.
I have continued my higher education at the RCA, specializing in Interior Reuse at the School of Architecture and in my final year, have assisted as a student researcher for a publication on Radical Heritages. With a passion for history and narrative, my final master’s dissertation, ‘Finding Place in Hiraeth,’ explored the meaning of 'place' and heritage in Wales through historic literature and photography.
*My short film 'The Thames Ship Lab' exhibited below, was awarded Best Film and Animation in the School of Architecture and my final body of work was nominated for the 2020 Dean's prize.*
I am fascinated by the stories that reside within heritage sites and how they can persist within the material and spaces that remain. It is my understanding that the past is an ever-evolving language; a text that can be read but also reconfigured; translated into new verse. For my final thesis project, it was the story and character of the Isle of Sheppey, and of the Dockyard church that became my text to decipher and re-tell.
As our ‘locked-down’ lives and studies became fastened to a new virtual world; I found myself returning to pencil and paper. I relished the way that working by hand could imbue my drawings with a sense of tactility, enhancing the presence of light and dark, of varying textures and weight. Thus, the story of my design was realized through a series of collages, pencil drawings and a hand-drawn animation.
With the current global focus on the conservation of our resources, the reuse of existing buildings is imperative to the future of our environment. I am very eager to continue exploring the potential of reviving and extending the lives of these historical sites, transitioning them into the present whilst celebrating their memory and unravelling their stories.
Section Drawing of Excavated Site
This project was conceived as a space that connects the island back to the sea. It does this through reworking the existing building and the site to create the Thames Ship Lab; a space where wrecks are excavated from the seabed, and brought to the building to be analysed, researched and preserved. This material is contextualised in an exhibition, choreographed to correspond to each stage of the laboratory’s conservation processes.
In order to reinforce and expose the fragility of the existing building, both in its condition, but also how Sheppey, a swampy island, is constructed like Venice, atop timber piles, the main intervention takes the form of a deep excavation. The interior of the ruined church is dug down four stories deep. This move reinforces the archaeological dimensions of the lab’s work; with fragile artefacts re-submerged into the depths to be worked upon, alluding to the surrounding dockyard, once built upon the skeletal remains of decommissioned ship hulks.
As visitors enter the church, they are surprised to find that the ground falls away before them, revealing a four-storey vertical laboratory, animated with workers, technicians and exhibition-goers. The dynamism of this space is extended through the action of a crane, fixed to the roof, delivering artefacts from a new canal beside the building, allowing direct passage between site and sea.
The new laboratory enables visitors to learn from not just the island but also the sea that surrounds it, engaging them in a subterranean excavation of the unseen archaeology that is hidden all around them, a celebration of Sheppey’s rich and bountiful maritime history.
Medium:
Hand-Drawing (Charcoal, Pencil, Water-colour), CollageMedium:
Animation, Collage, Film*Awarded Best Film + Animation by the School of Architecture*
*Nominated for the Dean's Prize 2020*
Medium:
Film, Animation, Collage, Hand-Drawing, Model-Making, NarrationEntrance to the Thames Ship Lab // Section of the Tower and Lift
Upon entering the lab, a lift will plunge visitors into the depths of the atrium, where the public exhibition begins.
Medium:
Hand-drawing (Charcoal, Pencil, Water-colour), Collage (GIF)
The Arrival of the Wreck // A View of the Research Laboratory
The second image, shows us the first floor of the church interior, where research laboratories overlook the vast atrium, a glass panelled roof casting natural light and dancing shadows into the vast, excavated space. This roof will open and close to receive and dispatch artefacts, and is designed to mimic the skeletal frame of a ship hulk.
Medium:
Hand-drawing (Charcoal, Pencil, Water-colour), CollageThe Central Atrium // Lowering the Wreck
In this instance, a crane is seen to be lowering a wreck cautiously into the void.
Medium:
Hand-Drawing (Charcoal, Pencil), Collage (GIF)
Viewing Gallery // Subterranean Exhibition
In the second illustration, a young boy examines cannons suspended in vacuum-drying containers. The clean, back lit, glass lockers are a direct contrast to the building's industrial, steel insertion.
Medium:
Hand-Drawing (Charcoal, Pencil), Collage
The Salvaged Wreck
Medium:
Hand-Drawing (Charcoal, Pencil), Collage
Tending to Desalination Tanks
The sound of the work undertaken; of machinery, tools, creaking wood and steel-capped boots on metal grates, will echo through the cavernous space, enhancing what could become a highly theatrical experience.
Medium:
Hand-Drawing (Charcoal, Pencil), Collage
Split Section Drawing
Front Section in Detail
At certain times, the glass-fronted labs will be projected onto, animating the space further with survey maps and drawings. On the right-hand side, we see the exposed canal with its water lapping against the exterior wall, providing direct contact between site and sea.
