The Architects’ Journal Architecture News & Buildings
About the Department of Architecture and Interior Design
Location Norwich | Courses BA (Hons) Architecture, MArch (ARB accreditation pending) | Head of school Teresa Stoppani | Full-time tutors 4 | Part-time tutors 8 | Students 72 | Staff to student ratio 1:10
Undergraduate
Finlay Irvine
Course BA (Hons) Architecture
Studio/unit brief Parapraxis (Unit ARCH3a/b)
Project title Interstitialar
Project description Interstitialar is a Sea Cliff Climbing and Rockface Retention Training Centre located at the eastern end of Hastings’ coastline. Like many other sites in the UK and around the world, Hastings’ coast is under threat from erosion caused by rising sea levels and climate change. The project looks at how we can inhabit this type of territory and use its resources without causing further damage. It proposes an architectural language that sits (and climbs) lightly on the cliff, inhabiting it thanks to dynamic landscape management and retention systems. The project aims to become an archetype that can be rescaled and relocated to other coastal territories facing similar issues. Looking to work with erosion rather than fight it, it helps to reclaim the shifting territory of the coast through architecture.
Tutor citation By responding to the site’s terrain movements, Finlay entangles dynamic landscape management and cliff retention systems with lightweight adjustable walkways, climbing paths, viewing platforms and temporary rest areas. The changing materiality of the site informs the lightweight mesh-like assemblages of spaces, offering multiple vectors of movement.
George Themistokleous, Marco Fiorino
