Across the Wall

The project proposes a new horticultural community in a former coalfield. By adopting the geothermal technique using the abandoned mining water, the thermal labyrinth would introduce an alternative way of collective living, reconceptualizing the conventional notion of work and home, individual and share, warm and cold, and intimate and distant.

On February 2nd　2022, the UK government has published its Levelling Up the United Kingdom white paper; An extensive document proposing 12 missions under 4 objectives to address and narrow the economic and social disparities across the country, noted to be the largest around the world. It is not merely a political act, but can also be seen as an opportunity to reimagine our everyday life, through alternative architectural approaches for living collectively in a rural condition. \r\nThe project would explore this notion, by introducing a new horticultural community in a former coalfield, where their social, economic and communitive knot had been loosened by the closure of mining facilities in the early 2000. By adopting the geothermal technique using the abandoned mining water, and referencing the passive heating technique called fruit-wall systems seen in the 70s in France, and Southern England, the thermal landscape would reconceptualize the conventional notion of work and home, individual and share, warm and cold, and intimate and distant.