Mark Ka Chun Ng Y4
Casting Redcar Acknowledging the inevitability of the complete demolition of the Redcar Steelworks Complex by 2022, the project addresses the paradox between the government’s idea of progress for new industries and the former workers’ and residents’ wishes to preserve the site’s industrial landscape and heritage. In reaction to the unique steel slag landscape at the South Gare and Coatham Sands from the Redcar coast, the project envisages a landscape archive and research centre where the industrial scars of the site will be exhibited and archived whereas research on the contaminated soil scape and phytoremediation will be carried out throughout a 50 year span. The design explores the idea of landscape casting and tilt-up construction both as ways of revealing the industrial scars of the contaminated site and as an opportunity for phytoremediating the polluted landscapes, and thus responding to Redcar’s paradox of preserving industrial heritage and developing a green economy. The rich geological and material history of the post-industrial town is thus cast, embraced and celebrated, in the new complex.
