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Nestled in the saltwater marshes of southern Netherlands, the Guild of the Ark embarks on an effort to protect and reinvent Zeeland’s unique costal vernacular. Faced with the challenges of maritime pollution, urban migration and coastal flooding, the craftsmanship commune envisions tidal modes of habitation, embedding industrial waste into the primordial fabric of Saeftinghe.
Rooted in the local folklore, the project seeks to bridge the myth with the matter – through retracing the steps of past communities, swept up by the sea, the project ponders strategies of preparing for the inevitable. Instead of digging in, the craftspeople capture the collective meaning of the landscape soon to be lost. Through a series of workshops, the Guild evolves its digital craftsmanship, adapting to the ever-changing landscape. At its core lies an ark — a symbol of collective knowledge and exploration. The use of maritime scrap echoes the industrial grandeur of the Guild's surroundings, notably, the port of Antwerp and Doel Nuclear Plant. Each of the four sets of craftspeople inhabiting the Guild Hall focuses on a different aspect of the proposal, forming a glossary of architectural solutions.
Spatial investigations speculating the visual language of tidal dwellings. At an intersection of the maritime material, local architectural tradition and future modes of habitation, these artefacts ponder the human relationship to waste and locality.
A detailed inventory of a decommissioned cargo vessel informs the architecture of the Guild Hall. The recycled fragments are integrated both in the structural shell and the buoyant appendices of the building.
The ebbs and flows of the landscape form the choreography of the Guild's construction. Retracing the steps of local mythos, the architecture investigates past modes of warding off the tide in search for new strategies of survival in the lowlands.
Glassblowers pollinate the myth of swamp lights via studies of rippled lenses. Potters study the Flemish bond, proposing modes of embedding terracotta into the ship husk. Carpenters propose timber sutures for assembly of the steel elements.
The final film explores the last act of the building's lifespan – the boarding of the ark. As a storm rises over the Western Scheldt, a glow across the swamp invites the commune of Emmadorp to shelter in the vessel of its collective knowledge.