This module is concerned with the design of a building as a response to a written narrative. Portsmouth is an island city of stories and this project is to take place on the southwest edge of Portsea Island at the mouth of the harbour. As a historic port city, it has global, regional and local networks and connections with space and places providing avenues to explore with regards to narratives. Portsmouth is the UK's only island city and the second most densely populated place in the UK behind Central London.
Using a narrative, an ecology centre is to be designed. This should be a creation of new typology that aims to bring together community, climate change concerns and landscape within the city. Ecology is a branch of biology that deals with the relations of organisms to one another and to their physical surroundings. This building should aim to make a community more aware of where they are, where they inhabit and more importantly where they coexist and what their future looks like.
What is the remedy to climate crisis and damaged ecologies in a post covid world? Are there more concerns, have these changed? How could a narrative or the art of storytelling play into an event of shared experience within a community? What could a centre of this type represent of a city and its future, its present, its now?
The spaces could be used for different kind of free lectures or workshops. There are required spaces however. The building needs to contain reception and community spacing, support and general areas, ecologies and specialist areas as well as service spaces. All of this aims to create building of at least 406m² that will service a community.
The resulting building should educate and inspire people for the now in what is happening in regards to climate change and rising sea levels. More than anything though, it should engage and act as a catalyst for change. Portsmouth is in serious trouble due to its topography, how do we make an entire community realise and more importantly can the building dissolve the obvious apathy many have for a climate that is relentlessly changing. A climate that threatens the mere existence of communities as we know them, as we love them.