Freya Hodgkinson

About

Freya Hodgkinson is an architectural designer whose projects centre around acts of making; where the body, landscape and a material interact. The 1:1 scale becomes essential, designing evolves from an embodied knowledge of the made object.

Butts and Bounds uses an historic ritual with the land; walking, to mentally map and memorise the existence of a habitat through a perambulation of its edges. Britain’s rare temperate rainforest habitat must grow and this project proposes how it can, by designing with states of constant flux. Shifting buffer zones evolve over time, navigated by earth markers whose material degradation charts the process of forest growth. Bodies are active in landscape; collectively making the markers and walking the expanding bounds.

The project is located in Lydford Gorge, West Dartmoor: a site of Britain’s rarest habitat. Temperate rainforests occur in places that receive frequent rainfall and moisture, with a temperate climate. Britain’s west coast is very well suited, with 20% of the land capable of growing this habitat; however only 1% contains it today.

Prior to reliable maps, communities would perform a walking mental-mapping ritual, to demarcate the extents of their parish. Called ‘Beating the Bounds,’ it was important to pass on legal and territorial knowledge to future generations. Boundary markers are representations of information. Freya proposed a walk that re-marks the expanding edge of the rainforest every 16 years, for tree cover can regenerate to 78% in this time. Earth markers define the edge of the growing habitat. Their material degradation embodies a state of constant flux and serves as a timeline for the expanding habitat.

The markers respond to structures found on Dartmoor, specifically the cairn. Cairns are piles of found stones. Could a brick be made that can be used like a cairn stone? These mould-less bricks are made from layers of compression, similar to ramming earth, using a hydraulic press and two pressing plates. Constructing the low-tech earth bricks is simple and facilitates collective and on-site making.

Freya’s architectural practice is experiential, curating the movement of people through a landscape. Walking generates site-specific architectural interventions.

Prior, Freya studied her undergraduate at Edinburgh University. She has since worked for architecture firms in London and Berlin and strives to work on public cultural projects. 

Email: freyamarie.h@gmail.com