Collecting Shells; A Collective Living Manifesto for Jersey
My thesis tackles Jersey’s unique housing challenges, proposing an alternative future for the island through a collective ownership model, reclaiming once-public land to provide a permanent anchor for migrant Care workers who sustain the island. The project explores how shared resources can foster belonging and community resilience. Driven by an interest in occasional architecture, participatory design, and social ecology, I aim to create spaces that prioritise human connection and environmental stewardship.
This project occupies the site of the La Folie Inn - an 18th-century bolthole that has stood ‘frozen in time’, empty for over twenty years. Positioned on the edge of Jersey’s capital city, St Helier, as the surrounding waterfront undergoes rapid development, the site remains a witness to the island’s shifting social fabric. The phased collective living scheme brings the Public House back into community life, supported by new affordable housing and a shell recycling plant - an innovative process centred on natural materiality.
Alongside research into the island’s unique socio-economic landscape, a connection between Jersey’s offshore wealth and the potential associated waste/overconsumption led me to repurpose localised restaurant waste streams; scallop, oyster and mussel shells. This research evolved into the material strategy: a distinct shell-lime render that establishes a new, low-carbon architectural identity for the island.
The final proposal shifts the project from an abstract material exploration to a visible architectural process through the on-site waste-shell recycling plant. The project serves as a tool to demonstrate how localised material innovation can foster a sustainable, collective living manifesto.
While this intervention is deeply rooted in its site, it is intended to function as a scalable framework. By navigating the island’s rigid planning and residency constraints, the project demonstrates how underutilised land can be transformed into a network of civic and residential infrastructures that foster island-wide resilience and spatial justice.
