This project seeks to link with the previous Ark project in the protection and presentation of Plymouths history. The project provides a place for physical redundant historical matter to enter and either be auctioned off and re-represented to the city, or re-purposed in the workshop. The proposition also provides a highly visible, and thus highly accountable, meeting place for a newly formed city architect and surveyors division, which will aim to oversee the responsible development of Plymouths future, conscious of the value historical matter has in the city.
The proposition comes as a response recent development in Plymouth, in which historical buildings, including scarce pre-war buildings, have been, or have been proposed to be demolished. The project aims to oversee the future of Plymouth with an accountable architects and surveyors division conscious of the past history of the city and the collective identity which is now becoming invisible.
The project also provides an auction house and workshops where the demolished remnants of buildings can either be repurposed into new objects (including building materials, which then embed themselves in new architectures) or re-represented into the city through the auction house. A valuer, or city surveyor, determines this process and the degree of redundancy matter has.
The proposition situates itself on a site where this 'careless' demolition of buildings has occurred and has since been left as wasteland where the demolished matter of the previous building still remain, somewhat ironically reminiscent of a bomb site from the blitz. The project salvages these remnants and seeks to build itself from this left over material as a primer to the salvaging of historical matter.