If we are to move away from the hard barriers currently seen along and across the Thames, we must learn to live with flooding. We must ask, what can we change and what must we embrace? Can we begin to turn back the tide on the damage we have already inflicted on this riverside ecology? Can we learn to live more symbiotically with nature, and harness natural regenerative processes?

In Regenerating the Hoo, climate researchers and citizen scientists will act as guardians of the river, establishing a hybridised wetlands centre and living on-site. Cultivating willow, seagrass and reed as construction materials, and learning and sharing the skills to build using low tech vernacular methods, alongside biomonitoring and habitat restoration techniques. Oysters will be cultivated, acting as a blue carbon sink, together with mussels to filter micro plastics from the water. The significance of this marshland habitat requires a thoughtful intervention; guided by the seasons, the community and the wild things. As time passes, patina turns to ruin and the architecture is returned to the environment. Birds use the old thatch to nest and new feeding grounds are formed.