Studio Sacred Landscapes

This studio will be set in Northumberland. The site is an area of 15 miles by 5 miles that links the Island of Lindisfarne to the Cheviot Hills.

There is a steep sandstone ridge that crosses the site. When you stand on top of this ridge you can look east to see flat lands, sand dunes, sea, and the causeway that leads through the National Nature Reserve to Lindisfarne. If you look west it is across a wide and fertile agricultural valley that is enclosed by the Cheviot Hills and Northumberland National Park.

We will begin by working with an ecologist, a sculptor and a quilt maker to learn how each measure and observe biodiversity within this landscape, to see how they are inspired by it and what effect this has on their work. We will each make a tool to frame and record our own observations and question how this might inspire us in our work.

In this time of climate emergency, we need to re-establish our respect for the natural world, re-evaluate how we live within it and change practices which are viewed as ‘normal’ to become those which are ‘optimal.’

The aim of this studio is to find means to optimise our relationship with the rich resources of this particular landscape. You will propose strategies for change that will have a positive impact upon this environment and the people who live within it. You will then develop the design of a pivotal building which embodies and enables aspects of your strategy for change.

The expectation is that your design thesis will manifest an innovative approach to sustainable, ecological design within the development of its brief, the materials from which you propose it should be constructed and the way in which it relates to its surrounding landscape.

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