Oscar Murray

About

Initially studying and graduating from Central St Martin's in 2016 with a First-Class Honours degree, Oscar has worked at vPPR Architects, Stanton Williams, Marks Barfield Architects and throughout his studies at the RCA: Samuel Chisholm Studio. Oscar has gained experience across a range of projects and processes from international competitions to working on a series of residential projects in and around London.

Over the past few years Oscar has become increasingly concerned with both making and sustainability, experimenting personally with woodworking as a craft and exploring through his research at the RCA on the impact of the timber and forestry industries.

His final major thesis project below investigates and utilises these interests and skills situating itself within the landscape as well as historical, political and social context of the Highlands in Scotland. Beginning with an in depth analysis of Highland Clan ideology and settlements combined with a study of land ownership and forestry - Oscar proposes here a radical rural repopulation strategy for both humans and nature. Identifying deserted and cleared clan townships, he proposes to re-settle these places with sustainable energy programmes and a nation-wide rewilding strategy focussed on sporting estate land.

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Degree Details

Statement

Re-Settlement

Dùthchas is a Highland clan ideology binding its people to subsist off the land, governing all classes in a mutual obligation to protect and serve man and nature. What can be learnt from this ideology when considering rural (re) settlements in the Highlands of Scotland?During the period of 1200 – 1800AD in the Highlands of Scotland, clans (clanns) controlled the territory and operated a sophisticated social organisation of land and people under two main ideologies: dùthchas and oigreachd. Towards the end of the dominance of the clans, there was a process of depeopling of the Highlands - commonly known as the Highland Clearances. The culmination of a myriad of contributing factors which ultimately dispossessed and dispersed the rural population and meant the dissolution of clanship society and those ideologies. 

Currently, large estates which were once held by clans are now in the hands of private owners, often used as sporting estates. A long history of deforestation led by agricultural and hill grazing practices are maintained by sporting estates occupying 43% of the total private land in the Highlands. Scotland now has a forest coverage of 19% compared to the European average of 38% and is classed as an ecological desert. This scarcity of forestry is matched with parts of the Highlands being some of the most scarcely populated in Europe. We are left with a landscape of dispossession – of nature and of people. 

In 1919 at the conclusion of WWI, returning soldiers had been promised land as a deserved reward and when this was not given, many raided the land reclaiming land from large estates for their own. Whilst many were arrested, it led to the formation of the Land Settlement Act of 1919, a pivotal piece of land legislation. At the same time, the Forestry Commission was set up, dramatically changing the landscape of the entire United Kingdom. 

Inspired by these events is the strategic foundations of ‘Re-Settlement’: identifying a divide in the landscape, perpetuated by sporting estates, national parks and a lack of transport connections; it proposes a renaissance of the Land Settlement Act making the case for a re-settlement programme tackling unequal land ownership. Deserted settlements on sporting estates are raided and occupied, marking territory for a string of new towns and designation of settlement law and forestry - connected via a new railway system. Each town is formed from a grid-based spatial framework fulfilled by timber construction on steel piles articulating public and private buildings.

A Scottish Town

Urban Plan
Urban Plan — Inspired by Roman bastide plans with a central 'square' and key public buildings, the urban plan operates across a formal grid with three key building / interventions. To the north the train station meets an existing railway and prominent walking trail from Glasgow to Stirling (the West Highland Way). The centre mediates between the two grids and bridges across the River Orchy. Lastly to the southern bank lies the extent of the deserted settlement of Braklead.
Evolved Plan
Evolved Plan — Informed by the extents of existing man-made and natural constraints, the grid formally sets out two intersecting grids. This arrangement is influenced by key buildings marked through acts of land raiding, beginning to define the overall markings of ground. Forestry is laid out as a fundamental part to the plan clearly marking human settlement with the 'unnatural' grid and fading in gradient into the rewilding forestry.
Central Intersection
Central Intersection — The bridge acts as a mediation between the two grids of the proposed urban grid shifting on its axis to provide two public buildings over the River Orchy. Extending off the platform on the top left is a pub with hostel facilities for the West Highland Way and to the bottom right - a market building with workspace above.
Forestry Centre (Ground Floor Plan)
Forestry Centre (Ground Floor Plan) — Additional to the key components, in this township is a forestry centre. Researching into the future of an expanding domestic forestry industry in the context of the climate crisis, contains a greenhouse, research facilities and a public facing gallery of these components.
Forestry Centre (Elevation)
Forestry Centre (Elevation) — The timber framework of the greenhouse sits in front of and is braced by a rammed-earth wall. This faces south and gains solar heat to warm the greenhouse through the harsh Highland winter nights.
Forestry Centre (Render)
Forestry Centre (Render) — The centre's greenhouse faces the proposed town conducting research on warming temperatures and the climatic impact this will have on native forestry.
Old Town - Post Office (Plan)
Old Town - Post Office (Plan) — Here the post township's post office operates within the grid of the urban plan facing and meeting the access road for deliveries. The existing ruin which it meets supports the entrances for both the shop and a stairwell leading to a pair of apartments.
Old Town - Post Office (Render)
Old Town - Post Office (Render) — A view from the stream looking towards the post office. The dry-stone wall acting as a plinth supporting the new habitation of the community building. Two apartments are above.
West Highland Way Pavilion
West Highland Way Pavilion — Exploring the architectural language used for the buildings, here a hikers pavilion and shelter nestles in a forest clearing. The construction method takes on the structural grid of many of the towns building acting as a satellite project extended away from the main site.
Housing + Ranger's Hut
Housing + Ranger's Hut — This street leads to the forestry centre ranger's hut on the left. To the right a row of terraced housing is supported by the same structural grid and timber joinery though is clad in an opposing material and stylistic language.

The township of Braklead is the first of the network of re-settlement leading from Loch Lomond and the Trossachs National Park to the Caringorms National Park. It sits at the northern tip of the park at the foot of Beinn Dorain. This deserted settlement is currently an 'Ancient Scheduled Monument'. Ignited by a series of land raids inspired by the 1919 post-WWI events, the urban plan is marked out and followed by a series of infrastructural and architectural interventions.

A Network of Estates

Phased Introduction
Phased Introduction — The network of re-settlement is based on a repopulation of human and nature. Identifying deserted and cleared settlements and a divide perpetuated by National Parks and existing rail infrastructure, the only connecting piece are sporting estates. This strategy identifies this land use as an unequal component (contributing 0.04% to the local economy) though taking up 23% of all land in Scotland. This provides the perfect breeding ground for a new landscape reflective of the heritage of Scotland.

Re-settlement is a national strategy of reclamation against current and historic issues: a large portion of young people who grew up in the Highlands state they wish to return (having moved away for work or school) but feel unable due to a lack of job opportunity and housing diversity. The landscape equally suffers and in the face of the climate crisis, a radical reimagining of the priorities of the landscape must happen.

A Scottish Landscape

Network of Estates
Network of Estates — Initiating through existing sporting estates, the prevalence of this land use and existing jurisdiction of National Parks is the starting point for a national strategy of reforesting the Highland landscape of Scotland.
'Natural' Forestry
'Natural' Forestry — There is no forest left in Scotland that has not been intervened and altered by human activity. Therefore how do we know what a 'natural' forest looks like? Are we not a part of what we define as nature? Overlayed on this image is a prediction of untamed forestry with the 1.9 x 1.9m forest plantation guideline grid. To truly combat and affect the climate crisis, we must intervene in nature once again to repair what we have broken.
Scot Rail Identity
Scot Rail Identity — The current Caledonian railway line that passes through the Highlands, travelling continuously up from London in the south of England. How can this journey help to change the perception of the Highland landscape through seductive imagery and repetitive exposure to a heritage landscape?
Viewport to the Forest
Viewport to the Forest — "How people perceived their Highland landscape in the past is abundantly clear in Scottish Gaelic. Trees were a highly recognisable element in a Gaelic cosmology, a vital part of the natural order and their loss represented disruption of the social contract between ruler and ruled" - Hugh Cheape, 2014

The landscape of the Highlands is characterised by open vistas of heather and grazing land of infinite munros and glens. This bare ground is a modern ecological desert. Its heritage and historic 'natural' landscape would have once been covered with a vast and dense forest, the home to lynxes and wolves amongst pine martens and stags.

This current view of the Highland landscape is persisted by the maintenance practices of sporting estates. Burning heather for grouse habitats and the uncontrolled prevalence of deer being two main factors as well as being the home for hill grazing animals, destroying new growth of trees and flora.

The open landscape is undeniably stunning and is cherished for its openness. How do we change the identity of the land to be valued for its natural richness rather than its damaging past and present human activity.

What does a natural landscape and what is our role as humans within this discourse?

The Apprentice's Chair

Dùthchas and the Dwelling
Dùthchas and the Dwelling — Dry-stone walls are all that remain of many Highland dwellings, we see them as ruins. Historically the significance of the stone wall was always meant as a foundation and permanent structure for later timber supported shelter. Families moving would take the timber frame with them when moving settlement and the perishable materials of the roof cover would be maintained and re-made every few years. The stone walls, often scheduled under the 'Ancient Monuments Act' lie in wait for the next residents.
Design
Design — Encompassing a selection of timber joints testing different framing components, the chair is assembled in sequence with pegs and wedged tenons securing the chair to its final position.
Elevation
Elevation — Studying the proportions of the chair's different elevations allow a scaled understanding of any final timber frame used in the township.
In Situ
In Situ — After being carried around the site, the chair meets the landscape, sitting comfortably within the Highland context.

The Apprentice's Chair is an exploration into the use of timber framing joinery as a transferrable and repeated kit of parts. The chair itself serves as a 'mock-up' and scaled template of joinery references used in any one building. The adjustable steel feet serving reference to the screw-pile foundations of the architecture and making it possible to sit at ease anywhere on the difficult terrain.

Land & Territory

Highlands — The film is set on site in the Highlands, Scotland - giving a sense of the terrain and the openness on the land of a deserted settlement. It describes different conditions relevant to 'Re-Settlement' - superimposing the footage onto the screen constructed on site.
The Set
The Set — The set or screen has been constructed in order to superimpose certain things on the site that are around the area or are absent. This culmination in one place on one object brings multiple facets of the project into one viewport.

Summarising threads of research in Re-Settlement can be that of dispossession. Of people (Highland Clearances) and of nature (loss of forestry). At the end of WWI in 1919 two events changed the landscape of Scotland and opposed these characteristics of human activity and history.

Scottish soldiers were promised new land to farm on and provide for their families on return from the war - and when this was refused, they ‘raided’ estates on un-used land planting crops and erecting small structures. This was not uncommon and had happened before, evoking ancient laws whereby land is owned by the person who occupies it with a timber structure and fire. As a consequence to this, though many were arrested, it rapidly brought about the Land Settlement Act of 1919 granting land to those who had served and compulsory purchased land across the Highlands to give it to them and others who needed it.

At the same time where the forestry cover in the UK was only 5%, the Forestry Commission was set up to re-forest the UK who would later become and still are one of the largest land owners in Scotland and the UK.

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