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135 Million Years: A Geological Drama

Part 2 Project 2022
Timothy Christian Murphy
Adrian Finn
Arts University Bournemouth | UK
This project is a culmination of one year of research and six months of design work based around Purbeck Stone and the abandoned cliff quarry at Winspit, Dorset, UK. Passing through the site, one can sense that a once-powerful drama has taken place and left its sculpting marks in the ruins, caves, and quarried cliff face looking out toward the sea. The aim of this project then becomes an investigation to question what forces have created this landscape, and in the process identify the actors that once inhabited the site.

The proposal consists of two sets of stairs that take the user on a descent through time. Visitors are brought to an intimate engagement with the exposed layers of sedimentary rock that have been built up over millions of years. This combination of descending stairs and strategically placed landings is used to educate visitors through the experience of fossils, ruins, and stratification that make up Purbeck Stone. Through the construction process quarrying returns to the site, demonstrating concepts of the circular economy by re-using the “spoil” of the excavation in the construction process.

Visitors will perceive a redemption of the site – an architecture that has existed forever.


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2022
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