Matthew Butcher
(MPhil/PhD History & Theory)
The PhD proposes – through design-based research – a series of speculative architectures that provide a poetic and provocative response to the threat of flooding in the Thames Estuary caused by the increasing unpredictable nature of the environment due to global warming. The purpose of this work is to provide an architectural engagement with current legislative and governmental response to these threats in the area – whether legislative or through the introduction of new infrastructure. The architecture will be developed within the context of a cross-disciplinary practice between architecture and the performative, where the environment and the weather alter the material fabric and location of the architecture.
These new design proposals will be contextualised within, and informed by, the history of pioneering responses to the environment, seen in the history of art, architecture and performance conducted primarily in the 1960’s and 1970’s. As part of this investigation the PhD will present new theoretical and historical research into the avant-garde architecture of Gianni Pettena and Raimund Abraham that seeks to understand the political and environmental agendas within their work, manifest within its performative characteristics.
Alongside this research the PhD will also explore certain methodologies associated with performance and art practice that utilise ideas of role-play and re-enactment. The purpose of this is to establish notions of practice that re-use existing historical models to inform new propositions.
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