Grappling with the complexities of constructing affordable housing in sensitive sites, the Inhabited Rubble Berm investigates the utilisation of waste material in a structurally integral way. A group of Norfolk dissidents, frustrated with rapidly deteriorating European Union (EU) relations, create a free port to reopen trade on the seaward edge of the existing settlement of Cley-next-the-Sea.

A new settlement is founded whose housing sits on the existing berm flood defence, creating an unusual border situation. The architectural language of the housing is a product of the landscape of the berm, the use of reclaimed waste rubble and the urban fabric of the two opposing yet neighbouring settlements.

Rubble is used in its raw form, without the use of adhesive or standard containment and can be easily disassembled. The construction method uses string to aid the binding of the fragmented waste. The massive tapering columns rise out of the berm, an extension of the landscape, braced by a horizontal tabletop, on which prefabricated timber boxes are cradled below and stacked above, creating a dense terraced wall of different vertical housing typologies.