Student Piranesi Mention 2022: Across the Wall, West Cumbria, United Kingdom, 2022

Student: Tetsuya Saito

Mentors: Lawrence Barth, Lucy Styles

Faculty: Architectural Association School of Architecture

On February 2^nd2022, the UK government has its “Levelling Up the United Kingdom” white paper, outlining 12 missions to address economic and social disparities across the country. This initiative offers more than just a political strategy, but can also be seen as an opportunity to reimagine our everyday life, through adopting alternative architectural approaches for living collectively in a rural context.

The project would explore this notion by introducing a new horticultural community in a former coalfield in Whitehaven, England, where the social, economic and community ties have been loosened by the closure of mining facilities. It draws inspiration from the historical tradition of kitchen gardens, where early interest in cultivating a diverse range of fruits and vegetables led to the development of passive heating techniques, enabling the growth of Mediterranean produce in various climates, and fostering a horticultural community.

The project consists of two wall typologies; active heating walls using the geothermal heat from the abandoned mining water that exists underground at the site, and passive heating walls applying the fruit-wall method, capturing and radiating heat. Through this hybridization the walls become a gathering place, rather than a threshold. In large indoor spaces, the interior configuration shifts depending on the outdoor temperature, where in winter indoor activities might rely on the periphery of the room. Domestic activities would spill out from the home in the warmer months, forming a congregational moment with the neighbours under the sun. The home becomes opened to the seasonal and climatic shifts, encouraging domestic activities to become more responsive to the outdoor environment.

The single gesture of configurating thermal walls would loosely connect the entire site, restoring the sense of collectiveness through horticultural production. The variation of homes, and hierarchy of sharing, allow people with different lifestyles to live together, and domestic activities to respond to the seasonal changes. The landscape of fruit production and 99 homes suggests an alternative way of collective living, where the conventional notions of work and home, private and shared, warm and cold, and intimate and distant are reconceptualized across the wall.