Amey Kandalgaonkar
MArch Architectural Design (merit), UCL
Anomalous Islands
ameykahn@gmail.com
architecture
ecology
habitat
The anarchic landscapes of Brownsea Island in Poole harbour
Anomalous Islands -
Investigating anarchic landscapes in an ecological context
tutor- Dr. Shaun Murray
MArch Architectural Design dissertation with merit, 2010-2011 The Bartlett Faculty of Built Environment, University College London This project is aimed towards criticizing the mundane nature of contemporary urban landscape. Every urban space is attributed with a specific behaviour and these spaces are constantly monitored by capitalist forces(e.g. CCTV cameras) in order to maintain the law and order. Everyday objects (i.e. commodities) play an important role in commodifying urban spaces by regulating the movement of the user around them and thus creating a mundane routine. Thus this project reconsiders the way of looking objects. To achieve this, an experiment is choreographed in
which the objects are collected on a journey and relationships are explored amongst them. The site of this experiment is chosen as the island of Brownsea in Poole Harbour, located along the south coast of England. This island is a nature reserve and represents a strong ecosystem with minimum human intervention - thanks to its last owner Mrs. Mary Christie. In an extreme contrast, the island is placed against sandbanks which boasts most expen-
sive real estate in UK and is placed on richest coastal oil farm in Europe. Due to ecological nature of the site, the findigs of the journey on Brownsea island are judged on three ecological levels- environmental ecology, social ecology and mental ecology. endangered red squirrels and migrating sea birds, sika deer, variety of spiders, diminishing heathlands, shells beach, ruins of a village and pottery factory, WW II bomb craters, pottery pieces, flotsam jetsam etc. cover the objects, events and
A network of environmental, soical and mental ecological elements on Brownsea Island
transformations experienced on the island. The project progresses by constructing a narrative around the character of Mrs. Christie. It takes advantage of time-killing as a creative excercise that provides personal satisfaction for the character, constructing her identity and expands her awareness of the rules of nature that govern the ecosysytem. She was reclusive in nature and gave preference to growth of nature, thus safe guarding the island against human intervention from 1927 to 1960. The island was set on fire in 1934 by capitalist developers in an attempt to get hold of it from Mrs. Christie. But this event onlys strengthened Mrs. Christie’s passion for the island. The NarrativeMrs. Christie spent her initial years on island researching on animals, birds and insect species and establishing their ecological relations. After the fire of 1934, she took up the massive task of rebuilding the island. The lady aimed towards building her anarchic ideal world by giving preference to the nature. She hired the ship builders, potters and mechanical engineers from Poole. The architectural interventions were made towards restoring the damaged ecosystems on site. By the end of her life, she had nurtured the growth of acoustic follies, enchanted forests, floating archipelagos and refutting fortresses. The world where there is no human intervention. Nature was allowed to take over the architecture and both are allowed to grow in abundance. After her death the island is taken over by The Natural Trust. A team of researchers visits the island anually to make the count of animals and birds. The simultaneous growth of the architecture and nature is monitored by placing the remote cameras in various parts of the island. Thus these anarchic spaces can be viewed live by anyone around the world over the internet, but still untouched by humans.
Werlands - A seabird tower
An earlier derivative of seed burial grounds for Red Squirrels
Wetlands seabird towers
A habitat for migrating seabirds near the Sandbanks pier, a view from a yacht
Woodlands Seed burial grounds for endangered Red Squirrels A view through a remote camera
Heathlands Migration high lines for millions of Heathland spiders view of communal spider webs through remote camera
Coastlands water breaker and reconstructed cliffs for Burrowing birds a view through a remote camera placed on top of a cliff tower