The Some Kind of Nature atelier adopts a post-humanist approach, drawing inspiration from the writings of Donna Haraway, Anna Tsing, Rosi Braidotti, and others. Our roots lie in feminist posthumanist philosophy.

Our primary focus is a response to the ongoing climate crisis, which we consider the greatest challenge facing both the profession and humanity. By embracing a post-humanist framework, we decentre humans and emphasise relationships.

By adding a temporal lens, we see buildings as spatio-temporal structures reaching far beyond their external shell into the past and future. This perspective allows us to consider the conditions of the production of architecture and the importance of care and maintenance.

We regard demolition as an act of violence, asserting that all energy embedded in the building process must be accounted for and justified.

Our design process is contextual, care-ful, open for multiple, often conflicting voices (Mikhail Bakhtin’s Polyphony) and entangled (Donna Haraway). We are collaborative, transdisciplinary and dialogical.

Architecturally speaking, we focus on context, prefer multifunctional briefs, and aim for an in-depth understanding of tangible expressions of human and non-human relationships expressed through space, materiality, technology, and time.

Professional Studies

Professional Studies 1

Supernatural: Kilmahew Saint Peters Seminary

The abandoned seminary, is steeped in history, lying semi buried in the medieval Scottish landscape. Described as ‘Brutal, beautiful, romantic, ravaged, spiritual and shocking. It is a place that provokes many reactions.

SKN work with the Kilmahew Education Trust as a live client to ‘detect the invisible and see the beauty that lurks amid the ruination’. The client provided a background to the site and buildings and an outline brief that may include facilities for creative arts, business, community, residential, wellbeing and recreation.

The SKN brief requires an imaginative re-use, where students draw on the complex history and context to develop a deep understanding of the site and buildings. They interpret, synthesise and develop ideas to arrive at their own ‘position’ in relation to the many facets of the client’s brief and their emerging interests.

Initially, small teams scope out the wider site to develop a master plan. Individually they then select an existing building and develop a proposal that includes retrofit and new build elements as required to a scale of 1:200 RIBA Stage 3 (Planning Submission level resolution)

SKN place significant importance on impacting our environment lightly, with as low a carbon footprint as possible. Using natural materials, we bring these great structures back into use. We focus on renewable systems, biodiversity gains and positively impacting the site for the wider benefit of its human and non-human inhabitants and the nearby communities.

This is an exciting and very real journey.

Professional Studies 2

Supernatural: Kilmahew Saint Peters Seminary

The abandoned seminary, is steeped in history, lying semi buried in the medieval Scottish landscape. Described as ‘Brutal, beautiful, romantic, ravaged, spiritual and shocking. It is a place that provokes many reactions.

SKN work with the Kilmahew Education Trust as a live client to ‘detect the invisible and see the beauty that lurks amid the ruination’. The client provided a background to the site and buildings and an outline brief that may include facilities for creative arts, business, community, residential, wellbeing and recreation.

The SKN brief requires an imaginative re-use, where students draw on the complex history and context to develop a deep understanding of the site and buildings. They interpret, synthesise and develop ideas to arrive at their own ‘position’ in relation to the many facets of the client’s own brief.

The students select an area from their previous PS1 scheme proposal and develop the detailed resolution through RIBA Stage 4 Technical Design, relevant aspects of Stage 5 (Construction sequence) and illustrate the building in use.

SKN place significant importance on impacting our environment lightly, with as low a carbon footprint as possible. Using natural materials, we bring these great structures back into use. We focus on renewable systems, biodiversity gains and positively impacting the site for the wider benefit of its human and non-human inhabitants and the nearby communities.

This is an exciting and very real journey.

Students

MArch2