UNDER THE PIER, IN THE SIDE ALLEYS

by Dominik Scigala

Name

Dominik Scigala

Course

MArch Architecture

Brighton & Hove sits at an intersection of several extremes. This former Victorian resort, built from the financial gains of the British Empire, on a coastline now polluted from international shipping, and where migrant boats arrive every week, is a place of contrasts. Within my projects, I explore, expose, and work to improve some of these inequalities. Brighton is a series of Victorian grids, and I want to link these to the typology of Victorian Pleasure Gardens, and subsequently to the critiques of modernist utility and supremacy written by the Situationists. Though from different time periods, Victorians and the Modernists both shared aims of spatial supremacy over space and culture, and this continues to be the character of the city today. The project’s spaces aim to not only sit in harmony with their natural environment, but also amplify and celebrate it. The spaces of this project are not always immediately designed to be the most ‘functional’, but rather spaces where the natural environment, and the problems humanity has created for it, are something that cannot be ignored. The connection between the land and sea is created through sound ‘follies’, which create an unavoidable sound connection and opportunity to the ‘edge’.