Emily Dawson

The past activities of Orford Ness were specific to the qualities of the land that the remaining architectures sit upon. Its vast expanse facilitated vast projects that extended previous limits of detection and destruction and its remote location meant that an atmosphere of utmost secrecy could be attained.

To call anyone before the Second World War a ‘boffin’ is incorrect. It was in the context of the pioneering activities that took place on the Ness that the term was coined during the inter-war years. It was one of appreciation, a boffin was a scientist who could liaise with the military to understand service requirements and who, not only had the skill and imagination to create technical instruments, but also had the energy and drive to build them.

The way in which we look at the land is affected by what we know, or what we believe, and subsequently influences how we act within it. Often, in areas of land containing historic significance, we see what we are told is of interest. This thesis takes the position that the tours of such landscapes should contribute to larger public discourse around the topics of concern that arise out of their historic content in order to remain relevant for our future.

In mediating an environment, one can create a new awareness and understanding that did not previously exist. In creating a new tour of Orford Ness, the agency of design is realised as a communication device in which intervening structures, film screenings and interactions with the existing are deployed onto the site to meditate its contents through time and raise awareness for the imaging of scientific discovery and its too often destructive place in our natural environments.

The proposed physical interventions take inspiration from the transitory structures of the Ness’ past and seek to contrast the heavy weight forms of the remaining military experimentation buildings.

The site represents both the marvel of scientific discovery and its adverse potential for detrimental effect. And so it is with the conscious construction of an experience within the image of science that a critical analysis of that image may occur by the visiting members of public. The film is a work of fictiōneered animation in which matters of concern are intertwined into the fabric of the past to question the acts that are undertaken in the name of science, the installation of the image and its role in the construction of fear and control within society. 

“Measure is as much a conceptual apparatus as it is a mode of representation… Measure is taken to orient a particular reality… to facilitate events… and construct a particular cultural world”_James Corner

In modern conflict archaeology, sites are viewed as multifaceted phenomena where the variety of physical traces possess multiple meanings that change over time. It is a valuable human characteristic to speculate about what might have taken place in the past when its physical traces are left so visibly behind. 

The work within which we engage ourselves, creates a lens through which we view the world; the scientists of the Ness’s past saw a test bed necessary for emerging technologies. However, not all the endeavours on the Ness resulted in success, a closing report of a failed experiment concluded with a quotation form Shakespeare’s The Tempest: 

This is as strange a maze as e’er men trod;

And there is in this business more than nature 

Was ever conduct of: some oracle 

Must rectify our knowledge.

Our regular practice of life has undergone a fundamental shift, new forms of cultural experiences are being created while Orford Ness is more remote than ever before. But the heritage remains and so too does the question of how we should interact with it.

For the investigation of this thesis, Orford Ness has been a site through which to experiment new forms of cultural experience, exploring how the use of film and physical intervention may intervene within the visitors’ preconceptions about place and the histories they contain. The technical and social plausibility of the design can therefore be measured in its ability to engage with a visiting audience and communicate issues of contemporary society.