ADAM DOBSON
AAM AD2 // REGENERATIVE DESIGN - RESEARCH BLOG
An Urban Escape // Bringing Balance to Bristol
"Radical Retrofit & Adaptive Reuse" / Master of Architecture Design Research Unit #2
About
The twin crises of climate breakdown and biodiversity loss are the most serious issue of our time. As architects, we must discover new design processes in response to these contemporary challenges, broadening our set of tools with which to engage with design projects. We are interested in exploring how architectural design proposals contribute to a wider ecology, species, energy and carbon flows to become truly regenerative.
By creatively tackling both architectural and planetary limits, we will examine architecture’s agency in shaping new forms of environmental and civic imagination, promoting resilient urban landscapes and communities and creating new cultural memories.
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Tutors: Dr. Izabela Wieczorek / Diana Dina / Martin Lydon
Project Manifesto
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With the increasing pressures of modern-day life combined with the demise of natural habitats and the climate emergency, this project looks to create an outlet by repairing, re-purposing and re-wilding Bristol’s Temple Church. The proposed public mental health and well-being service provides ecotherapy whilst subsequently increasing the biodiversity within the urban context.
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Through respecting, researching, and responding to the site’s heritage, the site provides a public space that is freely inhabitable alongside private facilities where people can seek help. It also implements strategic design interventions across all scales, from sensory gardens to city walks, to provide an urban escape for city individuals.
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With such a strong emphasis on increasing biodiversity, wildlife and microclimates, the project addresses how the site will remain functional, but also how the experience of the spaces differs throughout the seasons. With the scarily increasing statistics of young adults and working professionals who are seeking help regarding mental health, Bristol’s temple church once again can serve as a safe haven over a proposed 10-year period.
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Having a regenerative design approach, whereby whole system thinking is integrated into the design, creates a resilient site-specific project that aims to leave the site, the people and the planet in a better condition by the end of the 10 years.
