Archive 2021
The transition of Dungeness from a marginal industrial area into a tourist destination challenges the local community’s sense of ownership and raises questions about urban attitudes towards this beautiful place.
How should one approach designing a shared public space for Dungeness, with its remote and romantic landscape which encourages a sense of isolation and meditation?
My project envisages two roles for such a public space: firstly to be a facility for the local community; and secondly a place where visitors can get to know Dungeness in a more meaningful way than through weekend getaways. I conducted my research through reading, interviews and site visits to Dungeness. By staying there, I immersed myself in the landscape and got to know the locals. By gathering information I began to uncover hidden stories that I could use for spatial storytelling.
With my obsession with challenging the boundary between architecture, art, and interior, together with Dungeness’s specific context, I aim to propose something based on facts and evidence while bringing it up to a more expressive level that could compliment Dungeness’s inherent poetic yet whimsical nature. I tried to execute conceptual, fantastical ideas into concrete and realistic design through series of structuring, proportionating and detailing.
Dungeness Assembly is a gathering space that unifies and connects people through local culture and heritage. The place is also an assemblage of structures, spaces and interiors that relate to Dungeness, demonstrating contrasts such as enclosed/exposed, heavy/light and safe/risky. By highlighting these contrasts I hope to encourage users to feel and participate actively with their surroundings.
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Zheng Xu
