Unit 13
Hinterlands Sabine Storp, Patrick Weber
Year 4 Nicola Chan, Tasnim Eshraqi Najafabadi, Rui Ma, Emily Martin, Giles Nartey, Allegra Willder Year 5 Ye Lone (Jarrell) Goh, Gintare Kapociute, Kannawat Limratepong, Sara Martinez Zamora, Katriona Pillay, Yan Kee (Adrian) Siu, Mai Que Ta, Yui Sze Wong, Alexander Wood The Bartlett School of Architecture 2018
Thanks to Toby Ronalds, Design Realisation Structural Tutor, and Rae WhittowWilliams, Design Realisation Practice Tutor Thank you to our critics: Samson Adjei, Barbara-Anne Campbell-Lange, Edward Denison, Edward Farndale, Andrew Friend, Christine Hawley, Simon Herron, Inigo Minns, Matt Lucraft, Thomas Parker, Guan Yu Ren, Nikolas Travasaros, Paolo Zaide
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In the previous two years, we explored the ‘Hinterlands’ of the Bata Estate in East Tilbury. This year we explored Essex further – as both a site for projects and as inspiration for a broader investigation into how we inhabit spaces. The way we live in and inhabit spaces is not fixed, it is in constant flux: changing not only with fashion but alongside subtler shifts in culture, economics, the social fabric and, ever more importantly, questions of sustainability. Surprisingly, the dream of the single-family detached dwelling is still very much alive – set in a perfect arcadian rural or suburban landscape. Cities used to be heavily dependent on their surrounding land for the supply of food. Slowly the structures within our society are shifting, the work environment is changing, the way we supply ourselves with the necessary provisions can be challenged. ‘Off-grid’ is suddenly aspirational, rather than being perceived to be at odds with our modern way of life. Over the last hundred years, Essex has been a testing ground for a variety of new models of alternative inhabitations and communities. From the Plotlanders leaving the city behind, occupying and dwelling in simple sheds, to the company towns and villages built by Bata Shoes in East Tilbury and the Crittall Window Factory in Silver End; the Hadley Colony for the poor; the Osea Island community for living without alcohol or drugs; Purleigh Colony – a Tolstoy-inspired colony living by anarchist principles; and the famous Permaculture Anarchist workshops at Dial House, a community set up by the anarcho-punk band Crass; the list seems to be endless. Nowadays, Essex has a very different reputation: known for the television series TOWIE and its star Joey Essex, bottle-blondes with white stilettos, boy racers, and Saturdays spent in the Lakeside Shopping Centre or the Festival Leisure Centre in Basildon, affectionately called ‘Bas Vegas’. Instead of repairing this ‘broken suburbia’, Unit 13 is interested in ways the abandoned industrial landscapes of Essex can be used to create different ways of living. Each approach is different, all our readings are personal, and every solution is driven by innovation. We are interested in how we inhabit spaces and cities, what forms new communities can take on, how technology and production can drive this progress, and where different methods of procurement can lead us.