As the effects of the ecological and climate crisis become ever more present there is a growing public demand for alternatives to the everyday, extractive materials used within our built environment (a sector responsible for 25% of the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions). Architects, builders and citizens are imagining a new future exploring traditional building practices and natural materials, low embodied carbon construction and construction technology to produce new forms of material practices, culture and economy in solidarity with the people and our landscapes.
As we move towards the installation of our first Intertidal Allotment prototypes this spring, our Materials Season will explore this reconnection with natural and bio-based materials and how they can support traditional methods of food production that have long been part of local coastal heritage.
Kicking off the season we’re delighted to be joined by Daria Moatazed-Keivani, a core member of the design and research practice Material Cultures, to hear about the ways they are transforming our built environment with natural and regenerative materials. Material Cultures are not only designers and researchers, they are strategic thinkers at the forefront of innovative material choice and construction practices. We’ll also be hearing from Intertidal Allotment artist Andrew Merritt, who will share his approach to choosing materials for the prototypes that will be installed on Sheppey’s coastline. These prototypes will be made from a mixture of reclaimed and natural materials along with some unusual and innovative biomaterials. They will replicate natural forms found on allotment sites and along the coastline to create texture and complexity that encourages habitats and supports biodiversity.
Meyrick Road
Sheerness
Isle of Sheppey
ME12 2NX
Sheppey Little Theatre is a 10min walk from Sheerness-on-Sea station and is near Beachfields and Trinity Fields pay and display car parks. The theatre has disabled access and toilets (including disabled facilities).
“Material Cultures is a design and research organisation, working at the intersection of natural materials and low embodied carbon construction technology. We argue for the reintegration of architecture and agriculture, understanding buildings as irrevocably linked to landscapes of extraction. Our practice works across different scales, from materials, interiors and buildings to the landscapes from which they emerge. We design buildings working to integrate bio-based materials and minimally processed minerals into efficient construction systems.
Alongside this we carry out strategic research into how these ideas can be applied at scale and how they relate to a broader move towards regenerative land management practices. We teach across a number of institutions and we run our own construction skills programmes through our learning platform, Make. In 2023 we published a book called Material Reform, which assembles a series of essays exploring the cultures, systems, and infrastructures that shape the architectural industry and the destructive ecologies it fosters.”
Wild Materials is part of the wider project Intertidal Allotment. Our 2024-2025 Intertidal Allotment events programme invites people to explore ideas and test out materials for a new community allotment on the north coast of Sheppey – a proposed functional artwork by artist Andrew Merritt, one half of the artist duo Something & Son. As we move into the prototyping phase, we will be offering stimulating conversations on the project’s themes and hands-on activities to test materials and forms for the world’s first coastal allotment.
The project is kindly supported using public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England and The National Lottery Community Fund. With additional support from Ideas Test, Swale Borough Council, and Kent County Council.
Find out more here.