2010 UK Award Part 1
Augmented Reverberation

As our environment, culture, and economy continue to become increasingly transient, the British Isles struggles to produce its own industry. The Isle of Sheppey, which owes its name to the Saxons “Sceapige,” meaning Isle of Sheep, hosts an isolated marshy landscape, where the atmosphere is quiet and haunting. Scarred by the intermittent presence of heavy industry, rivers, ditches, and dereliction, it is here, away from the distractions of our visually dominated western culture, that the mind is allowed to wonder and our senses that are constantly suppressed begin to awaken. On Rushenden Marsh, “Augmented Reverberation” seeks to integrate a poetic landscape of light industry through the revival of a gut string industry that was once a thriving British venture. Bespoke natural strings are produced from sheep intestines for various instruments including the violin. Building, landscape, and instrument are intertwined to create functional pavilions on the marsh that form aeolian harps (instruments played by the wind). The complex arrangement of accommodation, abattoir, workshops, studios, and performance spaces create an interesting and challenging juxtaposition between the roughness of industry and the delicacy of art—celebrating its connection and fragile relationship with the landscape through seasonal music festivals and events.