DS 18

The context of our global climate and ecological emergency provides the foundation for all DS18 investigations. This year the studio continued its wider framing and explorations through the lens of air, whilst applying our developed research and design methodologies through a detailed, critical and urgent place-based investigation, turning our focus upon the southern coastal headland of Dungeness. This precarious region presents a microcosm of the physical, socio-economic and ecological conflicts that climate degradation presents within the UK and beyond. Internationally recognised for its remarkable morphological formations, ranging biodiversity and climatic extremes, the local economy is centred around the local Nuclear Power Station, now entering its final decommissioning phase. Amongst all this, according to even the most conservative projections, this once productive and environmentally critical landscape could be decimated or entirely lost before the end of this century through the impacts of climate change and sea level rise. What possible futures could this entail for this coastal community, its ecologies, human and non-human inhabitants? Ones of retreat, defence or adaptation? And through this impending environmental collapse, could their recoveries birth new collective typologies and public infrastructures based upon a responsibility towards our planetary limits, a just and non-extractive energy balance, or even a collaborative replenishment of our global commons?