Project Title: Hortus Conclusus
Dates: Jan-May 2017 University of Edinburgh, UK
My final degree project took place at a colliery outside of Edinburgh, where the site of intervention was a 600-meters deep coal mine. We conducted geological studies to understand and speculate not only about the soil properties above ground, but also below ground. The ground level revealed an environmental phenomenon widely encountered in Scotland. The accumulation and decomposition of rocks adjacent to collieries form an artificial mountain called a ‘bing’, where over time, endemic moss species grow. The subterranean on the other hand, revealed that the colliery is sitting on top of a network of aquifer bodies. In response to these conditions, I developed a proposal for a glass house, herbarium and an aquifer treatment plant in symbiotic relationship. The design process was driven by material experimentation with metal via plasma-cutting method.
