Sarah Nolan Yr 4

Inviting Landscape In is a flood refuge proposal that explores an alternative approach to living through the ‘Wicked Problems’ of climate change and sea level rise. This project speculates how much land and residential space is going to be taken over by future flood estimations, and seeks to rethink where, why and how we design to withstand relentless storm surges. The ever-shifting landscape and historical North Sea Flood narrowed my interest to Canvey Island and Benfleet and Southend Marshes, which lies off the South East coast of Essex. A series of creeks separate the island from the mainland. I focus on these flows of energy and potential short term solutions to reconnecting inhabitants with the estuarine exurbia and SSSI designated landscape. At every stage of the design process, I have used the unique landscape to dictate and drive the design decisions.

The 14 miles of concrete sea walls has enclosed the island and haunts the residents with the past devastation. The project explores the process at which building edges can be dissolved with the landscape to become one. Being carefully placed on the edge of higher land, the building can span across the delicate landscape. The scheme adopts a ‘tread lightly’ approach and utilises lightweight timber trusses that can span between the dolphin oak pile foundations that elevate the building above the rising landscape. In my model studies, I explore how the site can expand through constructing a series of lightweight timber refuge buildings that can work together to create a marshland community. The structure is envisioned to rise above the landscape and withstand a future flood disaster.

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