7. Interior Reuse
Eva Amouriq
Before being an RCA student part of the Interior Design program, I used to study in France where I got awarded a grade of license and Master 1 in Design at the Institute of Art of Toulouse.
In 2017 I got the chance with other fellow students to participate in the construction of an inflatable projection room under the direction of Hans Walter Muller presented at the Heritage Biennale In Toulouse.
Initially based in London, I am recently back in the Medieval village I was raised in. Being surrounded by ruins from the Middle Age has probably guided my interest in disused building and interior, have they encapsulated the time and phases of their context, which we can access through their decay. I strongly believe in the potential of details and palimpsest we encounter on site, as it might be the trigger of another start. Understanding the essence of a site is primordial to draw another narrative from it. The action of weathering draws attention to a time scale where its location and climate will influence its own shape. It is an inescapable finish of the construction held by time and not necessarily an act of destruction. The entropy of our Site under the influence of the tumultuous elements of the Kent coast was the starting point of my proposal, which aimed at capturing those changes occurring on the building through climatic disruption. Inspired from Modernist shapes, engendered by Carlo Scarpa and the studies of Leatherbarrows my intervention is drawing an alternative scenario to the escape in the inner land or the abandon which maintains the building as a new landmark, playing with his new context and coastal proximity. In a Future which is not ahead of us, the world we know will found itself plagued and shaped by the back and forth of seas and oceans, low-lying land across the planet will slightly disappear underwater. In a world in constant mutation, Architecture and Interior will have to find new ways of inhabiting space, toward the acceptance of entropy and dematerialization.
The Weather(ing) Station viewed from the Sea
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Three interventions form the station. The first is the main weather station; a long room that shores up the existing building terrace adjacent wall. The second is a subterranean paleoclimatologist wing; a room submerged into the ground and closely connected to the soil from which patterns of climatic disruption can be analyzed. The third is an observatory, connected to the existing bell tower; affording its occupants a monitoring station to view the waves and migrating birds.
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The project captures the changes in​ Sheppey that will be enacted upon it through climatic disruption. The reuse of the church will add another layer to the story of its role in the communities of the island. (258)
Medium:
Mixed media drawing (render, collage, hand drawing, water color)
Prediction of the new coastal landmark within fifty years time
The proposal rooted in the actual ruined state of the Church​​​ and aimed to emphasize its qualities toward a design inspired by its alteration and former shape.
Medium:
Mixed media map (plan, collage, hand drawing, water color)
When the orthogonality meet the North Sea
Detachment of the arch skin(s)
From the obsession of the Arch​ and the orthogonal symmetry I was dragged to, I wanted to highlight the central former aisle surrounded by the traces of foundation converted into pools working as a receptacle for rainwater.
Medium:
Mixed media drawings (render, collage, hand drawing, water color)
Exploded section of the tower
Inside the observatory
Beginning from the inside east entrance the corten structure will run to the outside of the building creating balconies facing the sea, which are following the shape of the new coastal landmark, on respectively ground and first floor.
The main observatory located in the tower is using limestone clamped on a parallels corten’s bars recreating the aspect of the small holes made by birds all over the building’s wall. This structure will be able to give different points of view thought small apertures without being noticed during the journey up to the top. The access would be possible from a ladder staircase were visitors and scientists would experience a​ « hiking » ascension.
Medium:
Mixed media drawings (render, collage, hand drawing, water color)
The main weather station and overlapped skins
Following this idea of a weather responsive building the use of shutters makes us able to control the incidence of natural elements toward the station.
Medium:
Mixed media drawing (render, collage, hand drawing, water color)
Section view of the weather station and terrace
This part of the building will be dedicated to the analysis and the monitoring of information gathered from weather measuring devices located on the roof.
Medium:
Mixed media drawing (render, collage, hand drawing, water color)
Inside the monitoring office
Inside/out furniture
Medium:
Mixed media drawings (render, collage, hand drawing, water color)
A pathway over the sea
A pathway into the sea
Skylights based on the traces of the foundation ​will bring a diffused light through the prism of water. This very same linear opening could be found on the floor to lead the light to the lower level during day time. On each side, artificial lighting hidden in the lower part of the wall will take over during gloomy days.
Medium:
Mixed media drawings (render, collage, hand drawing, water color), Plaster printed per ink diffusion revealed by water
Section through the Paleoclimatologist wing
Library of samples / Communal space
In the lower level, the sea will be allowed to go back and forth, creating a real conversation between the building and its environment.
The First level which will be accessible to the public will be occupied by a library of samples to enable their conservation for their study.
On the same level, a communal space located underneath the former alter will link the upper mezzanine from the staircase and balustrade grown from the uncovered parallel​ line structure.
Medium:
Mixed media drawings (render, collage, hand drawing, water color)
Looking at the mezzanine
Drawing the maps of tomorrow
Medium:
Mixed media drawings (render, collage, hand drawing, water color)
Projection of the Weather(ing) station in a hundred years time.
We can’t bend the power of Nature but we can compose with it.
This is where Architectures and Interiors will need to adapt, finding new ways of inhabiting space, toward the acceptance of entropy and dematerialization​.