Bex Browne

I am an architect currently based in Aarhus, Denmark, where I recently completed my master studies in the sustainability studio, Material Matters, at Aarhus School of Architecture.
Through my work I explore materials from landscape to built form, where the process driven projects aim to explore ways of designing in the midst of the climate crises. At a time where existing practices and material palettes should be critically challenged, the research based projects aspire to imagine alternative scenarios that consider entanglements across scales, times and perspectives as methods to discover ways of designing with responsibility and within ecological frameworks. This website acts as an archive of recent projects.

Bex.e.browne@icloud.com
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01 Salty Bodies and Pickled Rhythms

Bathing house plan 01

Bathing house plan 02

Bathing house section 01

Bathing house section 02

Bathing house section 03

Bathing house short section

Non-human actors of the site

Salty rhythms 01

Salty rhythms 02

Salty rhythms 03

Set of programmes

Site plan

Salt entanglements 01

Salt entanglements 02

Salt entanglements 03

Cooling wall diagram

Bathing wall diagram

Salt water rituals

Fresh water rituals

Warm salt water rituals

Master Thesis
Sep 23 - Jan 24
Tutor: Alicia Lazzaroni
School: Aarhus School of Architecture

Salty Bodies and Pickled Rhythms inserts itself in the fragile cultural context of the salt pan in Cervia and aims to read relationships between environmental, economic, social, historical and anthropogenic aspects. It proposes to respond to these relations with set of sensitive, plural and multi-focused interventions where the existing cultural landscape isn’t disrupted but supported by a pattern of objectives.

Salt, with its materiality and performance, is used to link and enhance atmospheric bodily and ecological connections. It is known to us as a common material but becomes extraordinary through its changes of states that occur in relation to the external environment. The result emerges as a visual manifestation of both the ordinary and extraordinary seasonalities of the site.

From investigating the historical, social, ecological and economic developments of the site, the project proposes to be:
- A critique of the current trends of wellness, and suggests an inclusive and appropriate experience, where various bodies are in symbiosis with one another.
- A critique of the current notion of comfort, where presently comforts and crises’ are in a vicious cycle with one another.
- A critique to the typical material palettes and technological sophistication, where extractive and energy intensive systems are questioned and reconsidered.

To activate and think through these patterns of objectives, the project has been developed within a specific methodology where entangled thinking is tested through hands-on making. Entangled thinking has facilitated a transcalar and time sensitive approach towards the ‘pickled rhythms’ of the site, becoming a method of considering the needs of the various bodies, the harmonies and dissonances between them and the potential consequences of intervention. Hands-on making is a method of testing the tangibility of an idea by allowing for situated and experimental happenings, as well as gaining an understanding of the materials “from within,” by “making with”4 the salt.

This project imagines the transformation of five abandoned buildings that surround an active industrial salt pan in Cervia, Italy. These buildings (caselli), were once watch towers and toll booths, representing the hierarchical powers of the salt production industry that lasted centuries, now in their state of decay they are the remaining symbols of change in salt value. The caselli are used to situate sites of intervention, each one becoming a common entrance into the salt pans thus taking on a new programme. One transformation (a bathing house) has been realised more thoroughly, through prototypes, sketches, drawings and details to explore the possibility of a salty tectonics along with the symbiotic connections with the landscape through somatic spatial experiences. Another (a breathing house) has been developed through drawings and a model to further test the salty tectonics in a more contained architectural exploration. The others remain as concepts.

1:1 Prototype

1:1 Prototype close-up

1:1 Prototype close up

1:1 Prototype shadow study

1:1 Prototype exploring salt water cooling

Crystallised salt deposits on reeds

Crystallised salt deposits on bricks

Testing a fabric salt tile

Crystallised salt deposits on timber

Testing capillary action with salt water and thread

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