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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02 Root to the Roof : A (bio)remediation between human and non-human

Drawing to explore the seasonality of reeds alongside the process of phytoremediation

Drawing to imagine the potential of reed growth upon existing rooftops

Axo displaying the added elements

Block plan showing the adapted courtyard for the water processing

Axo exploring the overtaking of reeds on the rooftops

Multispecies staircase

Multiscpecies drain pipes

Harvesting rituals

Tile design

Section through the housing block

Detail

Following the drip 01

Following the drip 02

Following the drip 03

Reed seasonality 01

Reed seasonality 02

Reed seasonality 03

Winter visualisation from the roof

Summer visualisation tending to the reeds

Spring visualisation within the reeds

Semester 9 Project
Sep 22 - Jun 23
Tutor: Alicia Lazzaroni
School: Aarhus School of Architecture

This project situates itself in an imagined scenario, where the rooftops of Aarhus become an artificial ecosystem. Reed plants grow in abundance in specially designed clay tiles, a variety of species reach this ecosystem through visible clay pipes, textured for critters to crawl up making the rooftop a predominantly non-human space. The rhizomes of the reeds provide space for a trans-species collaboration to take place between the plant, soil, water, bacteria, fungi and sun, resulting in the process of phytoremediation. This process then provides an essential human service of cleaning greywater from the apartments to be re-used in the building before entering the existing sewer system. The project investigates these hacked systems across the timeframe of a year, exploring different points of view to make the possible situation plausible, where the human is not the central actor and must take responsibility for the non-human critters our existence depends upon.

Seasonality was an important element of the project, imagining the growth, maintenance requirements and harvesting possibilities over the time frame of a year. Additionally, the project thoroughly investigated the water movements from the rain through the artificial ecosystem and to its movement through the housing, to the process of phytoremediation. Testing the growth of reeds in an artificial environment alongside the 1:2 mock up of a roof was integral to the development of the project.

Growing test

Studio set up of growth explorations

1:2 Tile test

1:2 Roof Mock-up

Growth from seed exploration

Growing tests booklet 01

Growing tests booklet 02

Growing tests booklet 03

Growing tests booklet 04

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