Ioannis Saravelos
ioannis.saravelos.18@ucl.ac.uk
The project attempts to address the sociodemographic issues that face the dispersed communities of Pembrokeshire, in Wales. In the context of numerous planned school closures and mergers throughout the coastal county, the project proposes a framework of interconnected walking schools that seek to re-establish the connections between the dispersed communities. In the light of new research on the link between narrative and community reinforcement, the design explores a school typology, where static classrooms are replaced by routes nested in the existing rural townscapes, and classes are measured in miles rather than hours.
Inspired by the recent efforts of the Welsh Government to re-appropriate the landscapes of Pembrokeshire though the use of novel digital media, such as augmented reality and interactive maps, the project explores the possibilities of virtual reality to provide trans-locational connections between the geographically dispersed schools. This additional dimension shifts the design exploration from a local scale to a geographical scale that seeks to establish links not only between the schools and their local context, but in-between the dispersed schools themselves.
The landscape flows uninterrupted through the volumes, articulating routes through the scheme which correspond to specific landscape references.
The drawing explores the relationships between material execution, landscape and interior-exterior thersholds.
Overlook of interior and exterior class-stops comprising the Arts/Humanities routes branching out of the Main Assembly.