Context

This project is situated in the context of the declining use of clay in local industries and the emergence of new digital processes, with a specific focus on the area around Grymsdyke Farm in Buckinghamshire. In 2014, there was only one remaining brick factory still in production – HG Matthews – albeit reduced in scale. The same year, Shaws of Darwen shut its less-profitable branch of architectural ceramics to concentrate solely on sink making, and subsequently re-established itself as Darwen Terracotta and Faience. Life of Clay engages with both companies in an attempt to find ways to invigorate collaborative clay research and practice.

Life of Clay stems from a longstanding interest in manufacturing industry and place. From the outset, the project was influenced by German architectural professor Gernot Minke’s writing on building with earth. Minke champions clay as a particularly sustainable building material and an abundant resource that can be easily extracted and reused. Production with clay also has a low environmental impact, especially when the material is locally sourced. Minke has highlighted direct engagement in processes of making as a critical dimension of research in architecture: ‘no theoretical treatise can substitute for the experience of actually building with earth’ (Minke 2006).

Another key reference is the work of German chemist Michael Braungart and American architect William McDonough. The pair’s research on the idea of a circular economy was outlined in their seminal text Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things (2009). Braungart and McDonough consider a human-built world that is sustainable, and carefully interrogate why and how we make in the first instance. They propose that evaluation should be based on life cycles of materiality and not at the expense of simplistic efficiency. In addition to the ecological advantages, the use of local site-specific materials improves a sense of community and the local economy: ‘taking an eco-effective approach to design might result in an innovation so extreme that it resembles nothing we know’ (Braungart and McDonough 2009).

Life of Clay argues that using locally available material to construct our environment is not only economical and practical but is also of cultural and environmental significance. The project was set up in dialogue with Raymond Williams’ intricate understanding of industry, art and culture in his influential book Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society (Williams 1976). He puts ‘culture’ into a wider context, beyond references to the mere physicality of our activities; in this case, making with clay. Williams understood ‘culture’ as more of a process than a product. The aim therefore was to engage with the ground in a sustained manner; clay that is extracted marks the beginning of a journey and how it is transformed over time should be considerate, i.e. it should contribute positively to our wider context and not harm the environment that it is taken from.

The clay beds surrounding Grymsdyke Farm were a major source of brick production in England for almost a century, with the last large-scale brickworks closing in the early 1990s, affecting both the local culture and economy of the region. The current growth in demand for clay building materials, combined with the lengthy transportation necessary between brick factories and building sites, suggests that a reconsideration of the sustainable potential of returning to the use of local materials is vital (9).