Luke David Reveley

“The town that roofed the world” will soon belong to the world, perhaps destined to become the next victim of a phenomenon called UNESCO-cide. A phrase used to describe the negative effects of mass tourism through world heritage designation in places that aren’t prepared for the rise in visitors.

The boundary drawn up for the UNESCO bid has a distinctive focus on the centre of the town, which has a stark contrast to the actual extents of the slate landscape. In order to form a proposal for Blaenau Ffestiniog, Luke revisited the town’s border with Snowdonia National park and formulated a proposal for a new kind of border, informed by the human experience of the landscape. This border acts as the extents for a masterplan in Blaenau Ffestiniog, extending the town back out into the mountains, reuniting it with its neighbour, Snowdonia National Park.

We begin the exploration of the proposal within the blurry edge condition on the boundary of Snowdonia National Park and Blaenau Ffestiniog. At the top of Cwm Croesor, a research centre overlooks the National Park, acting as a marker in the landscape, a signal to national park users that there is something else to explore over the horizon.

Through world heritage designation, the area has come under the microscope of researchers across the globe.

The mountains of slate surrounding Blaenau become the subject of material research projects at the end of the railway as well as the subject of tourist’s camera viewfinders. This building acknowledges the fact that the slate landscape extends further than the reaches of Blaenau through the views it frames and the tension created by its location on the border that has defined the town for almost 60 years.

As part of a global requirement to use less primary resources, scientists are approaching the question of how best to utilise the 750 million tonnes of slate waste littered across the mountains of Blaenau Ffestiniog at the only dedicated slate research centre in the world, ending at the turntable, stretching along the length of the railway.

The railway and dams are built from concrete with slate as an admixture. This creates a lightweight and strong concrete, which will be developed further through material research in Blaenau Ffestiniog. Slate is seen in three forms now in Blaenau, as waste, finished and set, as seen on the railway.

The architecture within the masterplan is an experiment in the use of slate as a secondary building material on a mass scale, representing the next stage in the use of slate, not only as finished roof tiles but as a reused building aggregate within infrastructural systems.

As the railway turns the corner and begins its descent into the town, it hides the pipework and cables associated with the power station and work taking place up the mountain. This huge incline is hiding in plain sight on the mountainside, nestled in amongst slate heaps and old quarrying activity.

The station shed provides much-needed space for developing new narrow-gauge trains as well as acting as a depot for deliveries to the buildings placed along the railway up into the mountains. A tourist level is placed above this main workshop floor, allowing views into the workshop spaces.

Democratic space is found on the platform, providing access to both national rail and narrow gauge railway, for all users. The roof structure houses cranes for the workshop, the walkway for tourists, and above, a much needed public space for local people. Within the huge developments in and around the town, space is still found to provide for local needs.