(un)hidden garden
wakefield, UK // apr 2024
> university of sheffield
The project introduces the concept of a storying centre where stories can be shared and heard. Embracing podcasting as driving storytelling medium, it enables the community to engage in a creative form of cultural production.
The proposal centers on designing spaces and environments that facilitate the use and experimentation of podcasting and sound recording.
The site, part of the Council Masterplan, is at the end of a proposed green spine. It is adjacent to the main Railway Station and connected to the city’s culture walk. Decades of surrounding development have left the site 3m below street level, with its two buildings, the 18th-century Grade II-listed classical Orangery and the two-storey service building, eventually falling into disrepair.
The story of the Orangery, once forgotten, can now be told through it (literally)
To celebrate the site’s origin as a garden and its present state as a hidden gem, the proposal restores the site as a green space while wrapping the new program around the perimeter.
What other stories can be invited through it? The main entrance is positioned through the portico of the Orangery serving as a portal into the garden. A stair-ramp bridges the grade change in an accessible way while creating an amphitheater for collective gatherings.
Extending care beyond human presence, sound pavilion captures and amplifies the sounds of the earth, inviting participation in a collective cultural production with nature, imagining architecture as a shared space between human and non-human voices.
The descent into the garden becomes a public space, an amphitheater, for accessible gathering and performance.
The sound pavilion serves as an architectural medium between human and non-human voices, enabling listening, recording, experimentation, and collective cultural production between people and nature.
manifesto video