Rathlin Island: A Landscape Repository

How do you archive a landscape? The story of Rathlin Island told through three characters: The Maker, The Cartographer and The Performer; evolves into three architectural programmes focused on the islands’ ecology. Telling their story through an intimate series of drawings, this project explores the hidden repositories of Irish Islands.

Archives are fundamental to society and culture, as they allow us to understand our history and regenerate the way we experience the world. But how do we archive an Island?\nThe project creates an Island Repository for Rathlin’s history and culture through drawing and making. Three building proposals in the South of Rathlin offer spectacular views to the North of Ireland and the Scottish Isles, whilst being situated amongst an ecology of island fragments. The Maker, The Cartographer and The Performer regenerate different perceptions of ecologies and landscapes, emersing visitors in an Island archive. \nInspired by the late Tim Robinson, the discovery of Rathlin Island is documented through a unique, hand-drawn cartography of visits, interactions, digital tools and research. Paying homage to the lost art of cartography, each drawing in this thesis tells a story of the landscape or of Irish traditions associated with Rathlin, documenting the island through drawing, model craft or textile art.\nRathlin Island is one example of a landscape that has the potential to be documented and archived for the benefit of future generations and the preservation of a place. The Maker celebrates the history of Rathlin’s trade and craft; The Cartographer reclaims and exhibits maps and artefacts of Rathlin’s maritime history and diverse past; and The Performer, generates new connections, of people to the landscape, reconnecting the arts back to the Island itself.\nLike Islands, embedded structures, constructed like timber boats or Irish currachs, connect architecture to the landscape, recalling the importance of architectural traditions and building practices, and the need to document our evolving world. \nThe three characters act as a Repository for Rathlin Island, combining memory, ecology and architecture, with the aim to renew and archive the life of the Island.