MArch

Two years at University of Greenwich challenged to look for unconventional solutions to proposed briefs. Both projects were very culturally charged and focused on preservation, historical heritage and site sensitivity.

Sigiriya in Sri Lanka, is the setting of my fourth year project. Unit brief “Taprobana” focused on the implications of space elevator on the semi-fictional equatorial island described in Arthur C Clarke’s 1979 novel, “The Fountains of Paradise”. D.I.R.T. is the ultimate response to the impact of colonial infrastructure on the island’s industries. Alongside similar rapid urbanisation events (such as the gold-rush expansion of San Francisco), space elevator gave Sigiriya a push to develop a structure which could preserve the history, culture and help become a hi-tech hub of the future.

Hylozoist Monastery of Benten-jima, on the other hand, challenges the Yi-Fu Tuan’s theorised space and place relationship and its response to the inhibitor. Aiming for the anti-consumerist future, the fifth year project is located in a heterotopia of Benten-jima - abandoned island in the very North of Japan. Responding to the pain of Tsunami of 2011, site becomes a part of the architecture and vice versa. Both shift and grow together as one, the architecture in Benten-jima is alive!