Between land and sea, a water experience to enhance wellbeing in a nurturing environment using ancient hydrotherapy ideologies and a cohesion of rituals to align mind and body with the natural elements, offering a means to counter symptoms of depression.
Grain Tower Battery
Final Major Project, 2018
Grain Tower Battery boasts the exclusive address of No.1 The Thames. Situated on mud flats 600 metres out from the Isle of Grain Spit, Grain Tower was built as an artillery tower to protect the entrance to the River Medway and the dockyards of Sheerness and Chatham from 1847. The main Martello Tower is built from brick and faced in granite whilst the two-storey 1940 later addition of a barracks block is built from brick and stands on concrete stilts that link to the original structure via walkway. It was at this time that the large concrete gun emplacement facing towards the sea and the tower on top were added, in addition to the ammunition hoist constructed centrally in the tower to raise ammunition to the ring platform some 12 meters above ground. Grain Tower Battery is a Grade II listed National Monument, its form driven merely by its needs to react to the necessities of defence.
Architectural Elements
The integrity of the surrounding landscape is viewed metaphorically with the landmass representing the physicality of the body and the sea being the abstract fluidity of the mind. Grain Tower sits between the two elements of its defining landscape and references the notion of viewing mental and physical health in equilibrium in order to enhance one’s overall wellbeing.
