Theo Clarke Yr 4
Floreat Blaenau Floreat Blaenau investigates the post-industrial slate landscapes of North Wales, specifically exploring the former mining valley of Cwmorthin located in Blaenau Ffestiniog, whose relics can be seen strewn across the landscape, resulting in vast areas of terraformed glaciers of waste slate.
The town of Blaenau faces a new future as one of the seven identified sites to be included within a new UNESCO World Heritage bid which seeks to preserve the industrial legacy of the town. The project challenges the vision of UNESCO, arguing for alternative approaches to heritage be taken that provide future stability by highlighting Wales’s historical relationship to Patagonia, resulting in the formation of a Patagonian enclave that celebrates Cwmorthin’s past as well as its future.
The project starts by creating a series of analytical, physical and digital compositions that propose surreal scaleless architectural experiments, revealing the elemental forces of nature utilising a series of proprietary objects and mechanical instruments. These are then interpreted to create architectural spaces that re-enact the natural and man-made forces of the site and reveal glimpses of the uncanny implementation of artificial mechanical installations; large flexible air ducts provide localised air velocities that generate plumes of mist which eventually occupy entire volumes.