With the time we’ve set aside for the allotment residency drawing nearer, the issue of a shelter has grown more urgent. Out of the blue I received a call from Simon Barker, an architect based in Eastbourne, offering to join us to help build a shelter.
Simon has a long standing interest in the evolution of improvised buildings such as those found on allotments or developed on PlotLands. We met with Simon yesterday and talked about ways we could work together to build a structure on the allotment using found and recycled materials. We talked about what the shelter will need to provide for us, and how we can make it into something more than just a shed – could it have another function or in some way be a place of transformation, somewhere that offers “a new view”? A telescope? A cinema? A schoolroom? And we talked about the work of Folke Köbberling and Martin Kaltwasser who mount installations and interventions in urban space, building structures from found and re-appropriated materials.
Simon will visit the allotment and we will all start gathering materials ready for a weekend of building at the beginning of October.
