By Zoe Rasbash
A Fragile Correspondence is the culmination of ten months of investigation into three places across Scotland, and asks what happens if architects situate their practice within socio-ecological systems. If we start with a deep understanding about the landscapes and cultures that make up a place, how might that change architects’ responses to it? Could architects better respond to the needs of people in the process?
The space is calm and quiet, opening onto the canals of Venice. Water laps at the docks and boats chug by. It’s incredibly peaceful, the rooms spilling with artefacts and creative experiments from a network of architects, community groups, creative ethnologists and artists from across the diverse ecosystems that make up Scotland.
Souvenirs of Scottish landscapes breathe Venetian air. The tagline – Highlands, Islands and Lowlands – reflects a collective unpicking of how diversity defines a nation and proposes new approaches where architects work in dialogue with the land and people rather than simply extracting from it.
"Architects should consider themselves facilitators,” says Alyesha Choudhury, co-founder of /other, a collective of POC architects that centre the marginalised individual within architectural discourse. We’re sat chatting at the exhibition they have co-curated for Scotland-Venice’s contribution to the Venice Biennale, A Fragile Correspondence.
By Zoe Rasbash