Isabella Dawson
BA Architecture
This project draws strength from the unseen labour embedded in the history of Dunwich, where erosion has reduced the once-thriving town to traces of its collective past. W.G. Sebald’s The Rings of Saturn reflects this disappearance, particularly in his account of silk weavers, whose work was bound to looms “reminiscent of instruments of torture”. Today, the endangered state of silk weaving and hemp rope-making in Suffolk echoes this, shaped by both automation and cultural shifts and loss. The proposal envisions a space where these crafts are practised and taught, using locally sourced materials as both building components and living embodied record. This act of preservation is paradoxically entwined with erosion: the structure is designed to be assembled and disassembled over time, mirroring the loss it seeks to resist. In doing so, it questions whether tradition can be both rooted and mobile—deterritorialised yet enduring, toward a Dunwich craft for the future.